Workshop: Digital Literacies and Digital Inclusion in Contemporary Brazil

The future of democracy depends on the data and technology available and those able to participate in it. These alone do not transform society. Neither does society change without them. In 2020, we plunged into an unprecedented multidimensional crisis (social, economic, sanitary or epidemiological). The current pandemic impacts and challenges how we understand, participate and shape our world. Still, it has also created an opportunity to make all kinds of inequalities visible and question them. In a post-pandemic context, the world is much more unequal but more interconnected. As such, data understood here as the product of technology can play, both short-term and long-term, a crucial role in shaping the world's future. This research examines digital technology and data as agents of change, specifically exploring the usage of data-informed methods in education and society. It aims to produce exploratory research on how data can bring new perspectives to a multilingual and multicultural society as a material and sociological force. In particular, who is the linguistically excluded and how they will be situated, cared for and represented in this new normal world?
The current COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated how data, digital platforms and technologies are used, but this trend towards digital transformation is nothing new. In the last ten years or so, a broader process of datafication has transformed many aspects of contemporary life, and it is no longer feasible to ignore the impact of data on human culture. Although the arts and humanities have traditionally had an uncomfortable relationship with the data concept, this complex array of data-informed processes can provide new opportunities in any case to study social inclusion and activism. Recent approaches to data interaction have highlighted the active role of data in forming new ways of interacting politically with the removal of barriers between politics, economics, science, nature and culture by stressing its constitutive capacity to shape social reality. However, the inequalities and inequities that poor people and territories in uneven development already have in access to the internet and technology have also deepened. For example, the poorest and most excluded spaces are also the most subject to fake news. The struggle to bridge the gap between these diverse and divisive spaces creates a growing awareness of the value of data, and the number of these diverse and divisive spaces continues to grow.
The global implications of the current pandemic have been incomparable and far-reaching. It has changed our sense and understanding of social, economic, political issues. However, this is a symptom of something that has accelerated and expanded as a result of the pandemic, but this is a much larger problem. The pandemic has simply made these problems explicit and wide open, and these interventions still present a very uncertain scenario. Today, our social and technological interactions are influenced by algorithms and data-driven choices. This offers new horizons. How do emerging technologies and data-informed methods provide new perspectives, constrictions and opportunities for multilingual and multicultural communities? While creating new opportunities for some, what is the space for the excluded? This set of circumstances presents a challenge as well as an opportunity. It encourages us to consider the social effects of technology in countering misinformation, considering potential workplace and environmental impacts, and promoting the innovative use of emerging technologies to improve both participatory and representative democracy. While our connectivity has raised socioeconomic inequalities, the importance of digital technology and data is increasingly recognised. This research reflects on the contributions offered by data as a social force while opening the discussion on the role data might play in hybrid contexts for research, participatory practices of collective and creative resistance and activism while promoting social agency and social transformation. Finally, it looks at data activism as an emerging field of interdisciplinary study, where researchers within civic spheres engage in new social practices rooted in digital technology and data-driven approaches.
This paper starts with a simple premise: data is everything. It proposes that when considering data to be information units collected through observation, the transmission of culture and communication is significantly mediated by a complex array of data-mediated methods, and it opens up new avenues for cultural complexity research. If data literacy is "the ability to read, work with, analyse and argue with data" (Bhargava & D'ignazio, 2015, p.1), where "arguing with data" means "using data to support a larger narrative intended to communicate some message to a particular audience" (Bhargava & D'ignazio, 2015, p.1). Then, data literacy provides access to new ways of understanding the world. As a result, it could also be argued that linguistic and multilingual dimensions, such as how data and data infrastructure work differently across different countries, languages, cultures, and geographies, are equally important. This research argues that humanists are unique in providing expertise and aiding in the expansion of data understanding in this area. One example of Art and Humanities collaborating with Digital Humanities in assisting in the understanding and broadening of data definitions is the module Art and Activism in the Digital Age. The module Art and Activism in the Digital Age is a new interdisciplinary module that my colleague Dr. Sophie Stevens and I proposed through the King's Interdisciplinary Curriculum Innovation Award. Art and Activism in the Digital Age activate expertise in Digital Humanities and Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies to expose students to how digital media and platforms transform art creation and dissemination. It brings together different skills and critical approaches to interrogate how global visibility affects communities in Latin America. The module started with the realisation that efforts to become data-driven are transforming how we mediate information and that new technologies have the potential to make an interesting, relevant, and intelligent contribution to the issues they raise about us, as well as to connect students, activists, and scholars in the same or different geographical locations.
Society changes through education. It is the means by which a person integrates into social life, socialises, communicates, and guides oneself. As a result, for the purposes of this workshop, this is where the emphasis is: how to use education to participate in data and activism? There are several compelling reasons to equip people with this skill set, ranging from improved access to learning resources to more informed decision making. Data literacy enables learners to develop foresight, critical thinking, and problem-solving abilities. The field serves as a meeting point for scientists who inherit methods from various fields (Aparicio and Costa, 2014, p.5). If data is the currency of power (D'Ignazio and Bhargava, 2018), educators need to start using this is also to empower our students. One of the primary goals of teacher education programmes is to prepare teachers to advocate for social justice (Atweh, Kemmis and Weeks, 1998). Data-driven approaches provide students with the tools they need to make informed decisions and think creatively about their space in the classroom. As a result, data can be used as a social tool to increase awareness and the sense of being involved in decision-making processes.
The protagonists of the data revolution argue that it provides an opportunity to "reframe the epistemology of science, social sciences and humanities" (Kitchin 2014, 147) while reshaping "how knowledge is produced, business conducted, and governance enacted" (Kitchin 2014, xv). Although "more and more hidden from view, forming an invisible universe that supports much of our lives" (Devlin, 1998, p.12), data has a vital role in facilitating public understanding of social issues (Dorling and Simpson, 1999; Porter, 1996). Today, data governs most aspects of daily lives, shapes our perception, establishes conditions, and provides directions for societal developments. So how do digital platforms and data-driven methods allow new and innovative practices to promote social agency and social inclusion? To equip people with the skills they need to be active citizens, it is now necessary to develop ideas that can be organically incorporated into the classroom while also empowering students by creating a lifelong education programme (Great Britain. House of Lords 2020). The module Art and Activism in the Digital Age responds to this need by examining data's growing role in contemporary culture and introducing digital approaches to evaluation and assessment.
The module focuses on providing students with teaching and learning opportunities that analyse key questions, materials, and methodologies emerging from Digital Humanities and Modern Languages, specifically Hispanic Studies, emphasising how digital technologies and forums are transforming engagement with artistic practice is linked to activism. The development of its language is thus essential to society as "discourse is a form of social action" (Van Den Berg, 2003, 120). This research aims to understand these systems through these understandings, looking at the connection between language and social discourses and the development of data as a tridirectionally enunciation between social, linguistic and numerical planes. As such, this research highlights two ideas. The first one is the role of emerging technologies and data in shaping education and society. The second is the problem of power asymmetries co-produced by data and technology as to the digital and linguistic excluded.