2024/02/25 by Gaia Amadori, Giovanna Mascheroni · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Data Analysis and Archiving #Human Mobility and Location-Based Analysis #Technology Use by Older Adults
paper · pdf · doi:10.1177/20539517241234268
openalex publication_date 2024/02/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Studying datafication focusing on the microlevel of everyday life poses epistemological and methodological challenges. Indeed, the black-boxed nature of algorithms makes data inaccessible and unintelligible to the researcher. Therefore, this paper aims to advance a methodological proposal for addressing the situatedness of datafication in everyday life by framing mediatised relations as a proxy for data relations. In particular, this research adopts a “non-media-centric” approach and frames families as communicative figurations. By reporting a qualitative longitudinal study on the datafication of childhood and family life involving 20 families with at least 1 child aged 8 years or younger in Italy and by employing a mixed method constructivist grounded theory methodology that includes network methods, we analyse three families as exemplary of different network articulations. Such an approach, we argue, can help materialise the mediatised relations through, about, and around data that emerge in contemporary family life.