warm data

The data collected would enable the organizers to plot “weather-maps of public feeling.” As a matter of principle, Mass-Observers did not distinguish themselves from the people they studied. They intended merely to expose facts “in simple terms to all observers, so that their environment may be understood, and thus constantly transformed.”

I've had a few tear-my-hair-out moments while trying to figure out how to incorporate statistics in my book. On one hand, they give a piece of nonfiction writing some heft. With a topic as big and broad as adulthood, the appearance of a number says, "Hey, don't take my word for it! This is quantifiable !" But as a reader, my eyes glaze ov

Mass Observation is a social research project. Everyday Britains send in observations about their everyday lives. It's a great resource for getting behind the headlines and into how people really feel about culturally significant moments.

It teaches them that data is created, not found; and that creating it well demands humanity, rather than objectivity

If in our daily lives we tend to overlook the diverse, situationally textured sense-making actions that information seekers, conversation listeners, and other recipients of communicative acts perform to make automated information systems function, we are even less likely to acknowledge and value the interpretive work of data collectors, even as the