Book Review

asks a timely question: 'How can we understand citizenship in an age defined by data collection and processing?' (p.2).The book's premise is that we live in an era where decision-making is increasingly becoming the result of computer algorithms fed by 'Big Data'-analytics.This digital development does not only enable the collection and analysis of unprecedented amounts of personal data, governments also increasingly deploy the new digital tools to make and support decisions that have a crucial impact on citizen's every-day life.According to the authors, this represents a power shift in favor of the governments vis-à-vis the citizens, and offers a ground for reflections on the social, economic and political forces that shape digital citizenship.It is hard to disagree with this.In their first theoretical chapter Hintz, Dencik and Wahl-Jorgensen set the scene.They identify core themes and trends in citizenship studies, and considers developments in citizenship through the internet and digital tools.In particular, the chapter describes the development from the techno-optimism in the 1990s and early 2000s, characterized by hopes for stronger democracy, and a more active and engaged citizenship, until the present situation where technology seems to be just as much a threat to, as a facilitator of, democracy and citizenship.First, active citizenship has been limited by state restrictions on the free flow of information (e.g. by filtering, blocking and legal rules for online speech).Second, citizens are increasingly monitored through the traces they leave during their online activities.According to the authors, this last aspect particularly 'complicates contemporary notions of digital citizenship' (p.37).The reason being that agency shifts from the individual citizen to those who process his or her data.Digital citizenship of today is thus constituted both by the acts of digital subjects as well as through the collection and analyses of these subjects' data.Against this backdrop, the authors offer 'a new understanding of digital citizenship that incorporates the practices, infrastructures and consequences of datafication' (p.145).In the second chapter, Hintz, Dencik and Wahl-Jorgensen commence to summarize their theoretical underpinnings for investigating the collection and analysis of data.While many voices today communicate how data can inform decision-making, problem-solving and enable positive changes to practice, this book takes a firm critical stance in the tradition of surveillance studies and critical data studies.Accordingly, their presentation of the field emphasizes potential risks (rather than opportunities).The chapter starts by outlining the role and meaning of data in contemporary economies and the logic that underpins datafication.It then moves on to scrutinize the various ways in which citizens are being governed through data analytics, and highlights the key areas of concern for notions of digital citizenship in a datafied society.This presentation includes key features of big data, logics of prediction and preemption, and the 'participatory nature' of contemporary surveillance.Last, but not least, a number of critical issues are raised, related to privacy, social justice and procedural fairness.Following this theoretical foundation, the book traces the forces that shape digital citizenship by investigating the regulatory frameworks (Chapter 3), the mediated public debate (Chapter 4), the citizens' knowledge and understanding of data analytics (Chapter 5), and the possibilities for dissent and resistance (Chapter 6).The data in the empirical chapters originates from the research project 'Digital