2017/02/14 by Helen Kennedy, Rosemary Lucy Hill · 280 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Argument (complex analysis) #Computer science #Data Analysis and Archiving #Data visualization #Emotion work #Epistemology #Everyday life #Faith #Feeling #Objectivity (philosophy) #Philosophy #Psychology #Race, Genetics, and Society #Rationality #Social and Cultural Dynamics #Social psychology #Sociology #Visualization
paper · doi:10.1177/0038038516674675
published in Sociology 52(4), 830-848 (SAGE Publishing)
openalex publication_date 2017/02/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25
This article highlights the role that emotions play in engagements with data and their visualisation. To date, the relationship between data and emotions has rarely been noted, in part because data studies have not attended to everyday engagements with data. We draw on an empirical study to show a wide range of emotional engagements with diverse aspects of data and their visualisation, and so demonstrate the importance of emotions as vital components of making sense of data. We nuance the argument that regimes of datafication, in which numbers, metrics and statistics dominate, are characterised by a renewed faith in objectivity and rationality, arguing that in datafied times, it is not only numbers but also the feeling of numbers that is important. We build on the sociology of (a) emotions and (b) the everyday to do this, and in so doing, we contribute to the development of a sociology of data.