Big data

ABSTRACT Big data is defined and distinguished from a mere moment in the “ancient quest to measure.” Specific discontinuities in the practice of information science are identified which, the paper argues, have large consequences for the social order. The infrastructure that runs on big data is described as diffusing with unprecedented speed but as being difficult to analyze and critique, and therefore the designers of society’s big data infrastructure, whether human or machines, play an unacknowledged legislative function of great consequence.