Citizen Journalism in the Scoring Society: Investigating the Changing Practices of Citizen Journalism and the Future of Democracy in the Datafied Age

最近在生物降解方面的进展使人类行为和社会生活的许多方面（例如，社交媒体、购物、病史）转化为数据，这些数据不仅供商业部门使用，也用于公共服务和治理目的。尽管数据分析通常使用黑箱和经常有偏见的算法，但英国、中国和其他国家的政府和公共当局仍然使用它们来分析、细分、排序和评分公民。其结果被用于风险评估、预测性警务、福利和医疗保健分配、就业和教育、公共服务转型以及深刻影响人们的生活机会。这种广泛的社会趋势使公民受到国家干预，并重新配置国家与公民的关系。迫切需要调查数据评分将如何影响人们的数字生活和公民参与，公民在执行授权数字行为和维护其社会地位方面面临的挑战，以及对社会正义和民主的影响。然而，对这些问题的了解仍然很少。该奖学金的首要目标是提供关于这一主题的新知识和辩论。我的博士研究是第一批研究社交媒体如何受到数据评分影响的研究之一。它调查了一个包罗万象的中国公民评分系统及其对各种在线活动和社交媒体的影响。这项研究提供了一组有价值的经验数据和理论框架，以了解数据评分可能对在线参与文化，公民参与和社交网络产生的潜在影响。该奖学金的第二个目的是推进这一研究领域，特别关注数据评分对公民新闻的影响。公民新闻是指公民利用数字技术，以社交媒体帖子、博客和其他形式的非专业媒体的形式，报道他们的见证、评论和观点，作为替代信息。它有可能解放和赋予公民权力，并随后重新配置国家与公民的关系。因此，公民新闻是一个重要的主题，在一个数据化的社会进行审查。本课题来源于我的博士研究，即数据评分对在线内容生成和公民参与的影响，为了实现这一目标，我将把我的博士研究成果转化为两篇期刊文章，并使用以下混合方法进行后续研究：i）对Twitter API收集的Twitter帖子进行定量内容分析;以及ii）深入访问来自三间不同传媒机构的八名调查性公民记者，以探讨他们的观点，以及他们如何改变或可能改变其新闻工作。该设计包含了一个很好的公民新闻的不同形式的组合，以提供一个全面的看法。我将从这项研究中产生一篇期刊文章。除了在高影响力期刊上发表的3篇论文外，本项目的研究成果将通过两篇简短的非学术简报和2篇国际学术会议报告进行传播。此外，我将在数据正义实验室工作，并访问Ada Lovelace研究所进行合作。Ada Lovelace研究所是一个著名的研究中心，致力于促进数据技术在道德和法律的应用，以改善社会福利和人类。数据正义实验室首次全面概述了英国地方当局（著名的私人参与者）数据分析应用的关键发展和示例。让他们与我的项目进行对话，将对英国及其他地区的数据评分的影响产生更广泛的见解，以及利益相关者和民间社会对这些发展的各种观点。这些都将进一步提升该项目的影响力和价值。

The recent advance in datafication enables human behaviours and many aspects of social life (e.g., social media, shopping, medical history) to be transformed into data, which is not only used by the commercial sector but also for public services and governance purposes. Although data analytics usually operate using black-boxed and often biased algorithms, governments and public authorities in the UK, China, and other countries still use them to analyse, segment, sort and score citizens. The results are used for risk assessment, predictive policing, welfare and healthcare allocation, employment and education, transforming public services and profoundly affecting people's life opportunities. This broad societal trend renders citizens subject to state interventions and reconfigures the state-citizen relationship. It is pressing to investigate how data scoring will affect people's digital life and civic engagement, the challenges for citizens to perform empowering digital acts and assert their positions in society, and the implications for social justice and democracy. However, knowledge of these issues remains scarce.The first aim of this fellowship is to offer new knowledge and debate on this topic. My PhD research is among the first studies that examines how social media is affected by data scoring. It investigates an all-encompassing Chinese citizen scoring system and its impact on various online activities and social media. This research provides a valuable set of empirical data and a theoretical framework to understand the potential consequences that data scoring might exert on online participatory culture, civic engagement and social networking.The second aim of this fellowship is to advance this research field with a specific focus on the impacts of data scoring on citizen journalism. Citizen journalism denotes citizens' appropriation of digital technologies to report their witnessing, comments and perspectives as alternative information, which can be in the form of social media posts, blogging and other forms of non-professional media. It has the potential to emancipate and empower citizens and subsequently reconfigure the state-citizen relationship. Thus, citizen journalism is a crucial subject to be examined in a datafied society. This topic derives from the aspect of my PhD research that examines data scoring's impact on online content generation and civic participation.To achieve the objectives, I will translate my PhD research into two journal articles and carry out a follow-up study using mixed methods of i) quantitative content analysis of Twitter posts collected by Twitter API; and ii) in-depth interviews with 8 investigative citizen journalists from 3 distinct media organisations to probe their perspectives and how they have changed or might change their journalistic practices. The design contains a good combination of different forms of citizen journalism to provide a comprehensive view. I will produce one journal article from this study. In addition to the 3 publications at high-impact journals, the research outputs of this project will be disseminated by two short non- academic briefs and 2 International academic conference presentations.Furthermore, I will be based at the Data Justice Lab and visit Ada Lovelace Institute for collaboration. Ada Lovelace Institute is a prominent research centre promoting the ethical and legal applications of data technologies for better social welfare and humanity. The Data Justice Lab provides the first comprehensive overview of key developments and examples of data analytics' applications by local authorities in the UK, prominent private players. Bringing them in conversation with my project will generate a broader set of insights on the implications of data scoring in the UK and beyond, and various perspectives about these developments amongst stakeholders and civil society. These will further enhance the impact and value of this project.