Data abstractions strip narrative context to enable unlimited recategorization

Evidence

It is not just that many instances of data discrimination occur far from the contexts in which the original data collection was authorized and its meaning shaped. Data’s very exchangeability depends on abstraction and “the stripping away of narrative” that “facilitates the … insertion of numbers in new locations and their adaptability in new contexts.” Once in circulation, classifications can generate not just first-order but “second-order corrections,” indeed, corrections in any higher domain without limit. Those “corrections” shape the life chances of human subjects. When a person gets categorized as a high-risk loan recipient in one context, it is likely to affect how they are categorized in other contexts. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 448

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains the mechanism by which data’s loss of narrative context enables ‘second-order corrections’ across domains.
• XREF: Cascading recategorization across contexts parallels the surveillance studies finding that one database label follows you elsewhere; also maps onto social caching from earlier in the book. — connects to: Recategorization succeeds only if the superordinate category is perceived as distinctive — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 736; Additive data without narrative structure produces meaninglessness akin to Dadaism — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New…, 133; Digital memory is additive whereas human memory is inherently narrative (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Recategorization succeeds only if the superordinate category is perceived as distinctive #expands (0.78) — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 736