Missing datasets
What they are and how you can fill information voids
bà nội
Tropiques, April 1949
They described her as “an indomitable Frenchwoman, a true Joan of Arc of good colonization, always on horseback or by car, managing her plantations better than ten men would have done. Madame Marie-Madeleine O'Connell, adored by her thousands of coolies* and their families and throughout the region, to the point that the natives had devoted a real cult to her and had consecrated her "Tutelary Genius" protector of their country.”
From “A resistance against the Japanese, the Caodaists and the Vietminh”, Tropiques, April 1949
*From Wikipedia: “A coolie (also spelled koelie, kuli, cooli, cooly, or quli) is an outdated, offensive, and racist term for a low-wage laborer, typically of Asian descent.”
Missing data sets (Mimu Onuoha)
"Missing data sets" are the blank spots that exist in spaces that are otherwise data-saturated. [...] That which we ignore reveals more than what we give our attention to. It’s in these things that we find hints of what is deemed important. Spots that we've left blank reveal our hidden social biases and indifferences.
DIY data sets
Instead of relying on others, make your own datasets
Three methods of making your own data sets
Surveys
Slate/Marshall Project: Prisoner Survey
Slate and Marshall Project reporters and editors brainstormed a list of questions. We also consulted with imprisoned sources. [...]
We hoped for 1,000 responses. We were surprised to receive more than 8,000.
�Source: Slate/The Marshall Project
Scraping: defining and investigating realms that you find interesting
BuzzFeed News: Social Media Surveillance of Teens
BuzzFeed News submitted public records requests to more than 40 school districts, asking for the alerts they received from Social Sentinel.
Many of them denied our requests, but we received more than 1,800 alerts sent to administrators from eight school districts between May 2017 and September 2019 for which we were able to read the text or view the images in posts that were flagged.
�Source: BuzzFeed News
The quantified selfie
YouTube story
The Markup: Misinformation in the Vietnamese Community
YouTube
YouTube story
The Markup
From Hoang’s watch and search history on YouTube, I can tell that Hoang uses YouTube to help her make better decisions about her life: from spiritual guidance to instructional cooking videos to getting medical advice.
�Source: The Markup
Creative problem solving in service of underrepresented communities, help us tell stories like hers
Stay in touch!�Twitter: @lamthuyvo�lam@themarkup.org�https://bit.ly/missing-data-gijc23