Data Archives - Public Books https://www.publicbooks.org/tag/data/ a magazine of ideas, arts, and scholarship Sat, 17 Jan 2026 02:16:57 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://www.publicbooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/cropped-favicon-2-300x300.png Data Archives - Public Books https://www.publicbooks.org/tag/data/ 32 32 What’s on Top of TikTok? https://www.publicbooks.org/whats-on-top-of-tiktok/ Wed, 08 Nov 2023 16:00:43 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=54074 The videos of TikToks can easily reach billions. But because the app won’t share what’s popular, we don’t know just what the world is watching.

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]]> What 35 Years of Data Can Tell Us about Who Will Win the National Book Award https://www.publicbooks.org/what-35-years-of-data-can-tell-us-about-who-will-win-the-national-book-award/ Mon, 06 Nov 2023 16:00:00 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=54161 We may never know what goes on in the rooms where literary prizes are decided, but thanks to data, we know exactly who was there.

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]]> What Films Should We Teach?: A conversation about the Canon https://www.publicbooks.org/what-films-should-we-teach-a-conversation-about-the-canon/ Wed, 22 Mar 2023 15:00:06 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=51407 What are the most-assigned films in college classrooms? Three film studies professors talk about the rankings and what they mean.

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]]> Data Free Disney https://www.publicbooks.org/data-free-disney/ Tue, 31 Jan 2023 16:00:45 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=51173 Each day, 50,000 people enter Disney’s theme parks, along with their phones, purchases, locations, and photos. What happens to the data?

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]]> Queer Lives Are Not Side Quests https://www.publicbooks.org/queer-representation-videogames/ Fri, 14 Oct 2022 15:00:27 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=50235 If you play a videogame and you avoided or never met a particular queer character, did they exist in the game for you?

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]]> Are Spotify’s Vibes the End of Segregated Listening? (That’s Not What the Data Says.) https://www.publicbooks.org/spotify-vibes-algorithms/ Thu, 06 Oct 2022 15:00:41 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=50087 What kind of world does Spotify—through its algorithmic sorting of millions of users’ desires, through our aggregated listening—produce for us to hear?

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]]> Where Is All the Book Data? https://www.publicbooks.org/where-is-all-the-book-data/ Tue, 04 Oct 2022 15:00:46 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=50459 Industry is already using data to remake culture. To reverse the tide—to make culture more equitable—we need to decode that data for ourselves.

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]]> “Democracy Depends on It”: Carissa Véliz on Privacy and Ending Data Surveillance https://www.publicbooks.org/carissa-veliz-on-privacy-and-ending-data-surveillance/ Thu, 18 Aug 2022 15:00:54 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=49631 “There is nothing shocking or radical about ending an economic practice that has too many negative externalities.”

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]]> Public Thinker: Lara Putnam Wants You to Knock on Your Neighbor’s Door https://www.publicbooks.org/lara-putnam-wants-you-to-knock-on-your-neighbors-door/ Wed, 20 Jul 2022 15:00:17 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=49143 “Campaigns matter in part because of who meets whom, about the social networks that are shaped by that campaign as well as shaping it.”

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]]> The 21st-Century Social Scientist https://www.publicbooks.org/the-21st-century-social-scientist/ Wed, 29 Jun 2022 15:00:39 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=48935 “If we want technologies that will not undermine our humanity, social analysts must join with other researchers.”

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