bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Scale Factor of the Laser Ranging Interferometer in GRACE Follow-On
Authors: Misfeldt Malte , Müller Vitali , Wegener Henry , Müller Laura , Heinzel Gerhard
Published: October 2020

The Laser Ranging Interferometer onboard GRACE-FO is a novel instrument, that measures  the inter-spacecraft distance up to nanometer precision with high reliability. An important quantity for this precise measurement is the absolute laser frequency (or scale factor), which is used to convert the raw phase measurements into physical biased ranges with unit of meters. The current processing scheme of LRI1B data products employed by SDS estimates the LRI scale factor by means of daily cross-correlations of LRI range with respect to KBR range. However, in potential future missions, where the LRI becomes the primary and only ranging instrument, such a cross-calibration would not be available. We therefore present a method to estimate the LRI laser frequency from telemetry and evaluate the model accuracy.

The laser frequency is determined and known to some extend from the settings of the lasers. We derived a simple linear model to relate the LRI level 1A telemetry to the absolute laser frequency, which is purely based on pre-flight ground measurements. This telemetry-derived frequency matches to the in-flight LRI-KBR cross-calibration value to approx. 100 MHz, which has to be compared to the absolute frequency of 281.615 THz of the laser light. The fractional accuracy of 3*10-7 translates to a range scale factor uncertainty of 1.5*10-7 due to the conversion from round-trip to one-way range.  The remaining residuals, given by the difference of our model with respect to cross-calibration values, are described in our analysis as an additional empirical model, which is dominated by a linear drift of 1.5 Hz/s. Some recurring features, likely with yearly periodicity, and of the order of a few 10 MHz are present and will be addressed as well.

With our presented model, based on pre-flight characterizations and in-flight LRI-KBR comparisons from approximately two years in orbit, one can compute the LRI laser frequency or scale factor continuously to a few parts in 108. By applying the continuous scale factor in the LRI1B data generation, one can avoid discontinuities in the LRI range at the day bounds currently present in LRI1B RL04 data. We conclude with implications of our analysis to future mission developments utilizing LRI-like instruments.
Results of fusion of LRI based attitude data in the attitude Kalman filter
Authors: Goswami Sujata , Bandikova Tamara , Yuan Dah-Ning , Francis Samuel , Spero Bob
Published: October 2020

Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) carries the Laser Ranging Interferometer (LRI) as a technology demonstrator that measures the inter-satellite range with nanometer precision. For the precise laser beam pointing, LRI uses the beam steering method where the fast steering mirror is actuated to correct for the misalignment between the incoming and outgoing laser beams. From the fast steering mirror commands, we can compute the inter-satellite pitch and yaw angles. These angles are provided as LSM1B product and represent spacecraft's relative orientation with respect to line-of-sight (LOS). The SCA1B data, which is computed by combining the data of three star cameras and IMU in the Kalman filter, represents the absolute orientation of the spacecrafts. Currently, this SCA1B product is used in the gravity field determination.  

Here we present first results of a new attitude product which is computed by the combination of fast steering mirror data with the star cameras and IMU in the attitude kalman filter.  We also present the impact of this new combined attitude data on the gravity field solutions.
Mass Sensitivity or Gravimetric Satellites
Authors: Spero Robert
Published: October 2020

A point mass on the surface of the Earth gives the highest frequency content for orbiting gravimetry, with  the maximum frequency for gradiometers or satellite-to-satellite tracking determined by orbital altitude.  Frequency-domain expressions are found for  measurements of a point-like source on the surface of the Earth.  The response of orbiting gradiometers such as GOCE and satellite-to-satellite tracking missions such as GRACE-FO are compared. The optimal signal-to-noise ratio as a function  of noise in the measurement apparatus is computed, and from that the minimum detectable mass is inferred. The point mass magnitude that gives signal-to-noise ratio = 3 is for GOCE  M_3=200 Gton and  for the laser ranging interferometer measurement on GRACE-FO  M_3= 0.5 Gton. For the laser ranging interferometer measurement, the optimal filter for detecting point-like masses has a passband of 1 to 20 mHz,  differing from the 0.3 to 20 mHz admittance filter of Ghobadi-Far et al. (2018), which is not specialized for detecting point-like masses. M_3 for  future GRACE-like missions with different orbital parameters and improved instrument sensitivity is explored, and the optimum spacecraft separation is found.
GRACE/GRACE-FO science data archiving, distribution and user support at PO.DAAC
Authors: Li Wen-Hao , Finch Christopher
Published: October 2020

The Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center (PO.DAAC) is the primary data archiving center for the GRACE/GRACE-FO mission products. During FY20, nearly 20 new and updated GRACE/GRACE-FO (Level-3,4) datasets have been archived and disseminated through PO.DAAC. In addition, a series of GRACE/GRACE-FO derived (Level-4) products supported by the MEaSUREs HOMAGE Project have been or soon will be released, including the published Global Mean Sea Level (GMSL) dataset. Easing the barriers of science data discoverability and usability, PO.DAAC has devoted major efforts to increase the data accessibility by integrating all its available tools/services, such the PO.DAAC Drive, OPeNDAP, THREDDS, LAS and Web Services. As a value-added service, GRACE/GRACE-FO liquid water equivalent thickness from the JPL-produced Mascon CRI monthly grids RL06 v2 can be dynamically visualized on a global map using the PO.DAAC State of the Oceans (SOTO) tool.  The availability of new and reprocessed datasets is promoted through a variety of media, including PO.DAAC’s Web Portal, email, social media (i.e., Twitter, Facebook), data animations on Youtube, and the PO.DAAC Forum. Recently, PO.DAAC has rolled out a refreshed web portal interface to provide more intuitive user experience and efficient browsing functionality to help simplify the data discovery and access experience. Some new features are also added to enrich dataset information, such as dataset citations, sample read software and data recipes on PO.DAAC github, and an updated Forum. The goal of the PO.DAAC is to provide the GRACE/GRACE-FO community access to high quality data with minimal user effort in discovering, accessing, understanding and utilizing the data.
Water Cycle Extremes in the GRACE and GRACE-FO Data Record
Authors: Rodell Matthew , Li Bailing
Published: October 2020

A unique aspect of satellite gravimetry is its ability to quantify changes in all water stored at all depths on and beneath the land surface.  Hence, GRACE and GRACE-FO are well suited for quantifying both hydrological droughts, when terrestrial water storage (TWS) is low, and pluvial events, when TWS is high.  In this study we use GRACE and GRACE-FO data assimilation within a land surface model to fill the 1-year gap between the two missions and to replace other missing data.  We apply a cluster analysis approach to identify the locations and extents of TWS extreme events in resulting data record.  We then rank these events based on their intensity, i.e., the integral of the non-seasonal water mass anomaly over the period of the event.  In this presentation we report on the largest wet and dry events over each continent.  During the period of study, Africa, North America, and Australia each had a wet event with an intensity that exceeded 10,000 km3 * month, although the 2010-2012 event in Australia can largely be attributed to a depressed baseline TWS during the period caused by the millennial drought.  With 30 more years of data it is probable that the intensity of that drought would have been greater than the recovery and wet event during 2010-2012.  As it stands, the biggest drought event was determined to be one occurred in South America during 2015-2016, with an intensity of over 10,000 km3 * month.
Novel ocean tide solutions for application in satellite gravimetry including minor tides
Authors: Sulzbach Roman , Dobslaw Henryk , Thomas Maik
Published: October 2020

The accuracy of ocean tide models has increased drastically since the launch of Topex/Poseidon and its successors. However, in regions of imperfect altimetry coverage (e.g., polar seas and coastal areas) and for minor tides with small signal-to-noise ratios, unconstrained tidal models provide crucial estimates of tidal variability in both sea-level and ocean bottom pressure that are truly global in spatial coverage.

We will present improved results from the unconstrained hydrodynamic barotropic tidal model TiME (Weis et al., 2008) that was enhanced recently with various newly developed features including (i) a rotated grid avoiding the open sea coordinate singularity allowing for global simulations without the need of introducing open ocean boundaries or spherical caps; (ii) a revised scheme for feedbacks of self-attraction and loading on ocean dynamics; (iii) updated bathymetries that also include water column height information in cavities underneath the Antarctic ice-shelves; (iv) the ability to either simulate individual partial tides or transient tidal dynamics by means of full forcing by ephemerides including contributions of the third-order lunisolar potential (Hartmann and Wenzel, 1995). Most recently, (v) a topographic wave drag parametrization following the tensor scheme of Nycander (2005) was incorporated in order to properly represent also this energy dissipation channel in TiME.

We will concentrate on results for the principal lunar tide (M2) as well as on estimates of some minor tides that are not routinely included in modern tidal atlases. In a medium term perspective, tidal results from TiME will be considered as background information for the processing of GRACE and GRACE-FO gravity fields as currently explored within the research group NEROGRAV funded by the German Research Foundation.
Estimation of Glacial Isostatic Adjustment uplift rate in the Totten glacier's outlet from GPS and GRACE
Authors: Razeghi Mahdiyeh , Han Shin-Chan , King Matt , Tregoning Paul
Published: October 2020

Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA) refers to the gradual response of the solid Earth to the deglaciation of historic ice sheets.  This ongoing rebound is contributing to the measurements of gravity change and land deformation, respectively, by Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) and Global Positioning System (GPS).  When these space geodetic data are used to quantify the present-day ice mass change, the effect such as GIA must be accounted for.  In this study, we developed a method to estimate GIA and elastic deformation by the present-day ice mass change in the GPS time series with the example of Casey station in East Antarctica.  We determined a high-resolution, present-day ice mass change model on the outlet of Totten Glacier and calculated the elastic rebound over the area.  Our high-resolution model indicated a total mass loss of 15.7 ± 0.5 Gt/yr on the outlet of Totten Glacier from 2002 to 2017 with the accelerated loss in the last half of the period.  We estimated the viscoelastic deformation attributed to GIA by removing the predicted elastic deformation from GPS measurements.  Four different GPS position solutions for the Casey station, the continuously operating GPS station near the area, were examined.  The estimated GIA signal appears to be within 0.3 – 1.3 mm/yr which shows its contribution on the vertical deformation between 30 – 60 % among different GPS solutions.  On the other hand, the vertical elastic deformation trend is predicted to be 0.7 mm/yr from the ice mass change model.  The GPS measured seasonal variation is explained equally by atmospheric-oceanic loading and degree-1 loading with a couple mm amplitude in vertical time series.  The elastic rebound from the present-day ice mass change also perturbed the horizontal displacement by 0.13 mm/yr in west and 0.21 mm/yr in north directions.  This is in the opposite to the plate motion of the East Antarctica around the Casey station and amounts approximately up to 10 % of the measured tectonic motion.
Exploring Earth's space environment with the GRACE-FO mission
Authors: Stolle Claudia , Michaelis Ingo , Xiong Chao , Kervalishvili Guram , Schreiter Lucas , Yamazaki Yosuke , van den IJssel Jose , Arnold Daniel , Rother Martin , Rauberg Jan , Usbeck Thomas , Dahle Christoph
Published: October 2020

As part of its attitude and orbit control system, the GRACE-FO satellites carry vector magnetometers. After appropriate calibration and characterisation of artificial magnetic disturbances, the mean residual to the high precision magnetic models is below 1 nT during times of geomagnetic quiet conditions. Furthermore, navigational GPS observations are used to derived data of the total electron content integrated over the upper ionosphere and KBR data are used to derive in situ electron density. These observations are valuable assets to characterize the natural variability of Earth's magnetic field and its space environment. The performance of GRACE-FO magnetic and plasma data is discussed on selected scientific examples. E.g., during magnetic storm events, GRACE-FO, in a constellation with other satellites, reveals the local time dependence of the magnetospheric ring current signature, and monitors significant plasma density enhancements at low and high latitudes. It is further demonstrated that the dual-satellite constellation of GRACE-FO is most suitable to derive the persistence of auroral field-aligned currents with scale lengths of 180 km or longer.

The data derived from non-dedicated observations extends the scientific application areas of the GRACE-FO to space weather and monitoring. Together with similar data sets such as from CHAMP, GRACE, GOCE, and Swarm among others, magnetic and ionospheric monitoring over nearly two solar cycles is available at LEO for different local times or altitudes.
MARVEL mission proposal: The latest update
Authors: Lemoine Jean-Michel , Mandea Mioara , Meyssignac Benoit , Blazquez Alejandro , Lopes Louise , Michaud Joël , Balmino Georges , Bourgogne Stéphane , Samain Etienne , Costes Vincent , Bruinsma Sean
Published: October 2020

Following the recommendations of the 2019 CNES scientific prospective seminar, a pre-Phase-A study was launched in January 2020 at CNES on the concept of the MARVEL mission. MARVEL proposed to carry out in a single mission the survey of earth mass transfers with increased precision and the determination of the terrestrial reference system, thanks to two constellations of satellites at 500 and 7000 km altitude equipped with "radial" measurement links between the constellations. The results of the first six months of this pre-Phase-A will be presented.

Our work has mainly focused on two axes:
- a closed-loop numerical simulation to assess the scientific performance of a large number of orbital configurations, including radial links but also "Bender" and "Pendulum" configurations;
- a technological study to bring the precision of a laser inter-satellites chronometry link to the micrometric level.

This work has, so far, highlighted:
1 / the poorer performance for the determination of the gravity field of the "radial" type measurements compared to a "pendular" configuration in which the satellites are at the same low altitude with the ascending nodes of their orbits slightly offset so that the measurements between the spacecraft are alternatively oriented to the right and to the left of the track, thus improving the geometric configuration compared to an in-line pair of satellites;
2 / the technological possibility of achieving by chronometric laser link, over a few hundred or even a few thousand km, the precision of 1 micrometer in distance and 0.1 micrometer/s in relative velocity (which is necessary for the achievement of the scientific objectives).

The pre-Phase-A MARVEL, taking into account the "Mass Change" studies on the NASA side and "NGGM" on the ESA side, is therefore reoriented towards a "pendulum" type mission, abandoning the objective of determining jointly the terrestrial reference system.
GRACE/GRACE-FO observed Mass change patterns of Antarctica extracted by ICA method
Authors: Shi Tianyan , Fukuda Yoichi , Doi Koichiro , Okuno Junichi
Published: October 2020

Antarctica is one of the most rapidly mass changing areas with poor ground observation data on Earth. Considering the dominant uncertainty in Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA) effects for the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) mass balance, we analyze mass change patterns of Antarctica qualitatively using a statistics-based blind source separation method named Independent Component Analysis (ICA). We extract the 6 leading independent components using gravimetric data derived from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission and GRACE Follow-On (GRACE-FO) mission. The results show that the whole continental mass changes can be effectively separated into several spatial patterns that could be dominated by different physical processes. Although the hidden independent physical processes cannot be completely separated, some significant signals such as glacial melting components, snow accumulation components, periodic climatic components, and GIA effects could be determined without introducing any external information. We also found that the time period of the employed data sets has a direct impact on ICA results. This suggested that some impacts of extreme events, such as rapid increases of snowfall in the late 2000s might cause dramatic changes spatially and temporally. In general, ICA provides a special view for a better understanding of AIS mass changes and specific regional researches.
RL05 monthly and 10-day gravity field solutions from CNES/GRGS
Authors: Lemoine Jean-Michel , Bourgogne Stéphane
Published: October 2020

In February 2020 CNES/GRGS published its 5th reprocessing (called "RL05") of the GRACE data, from August 2002 to August 2016. The extension of this series covering the span of the GRACE-FO data, 2018-now, will be released in October. This new times series comes, as for the previous releases, in a monthly and a 10-day time resolution. 

The main differences of the new release with respect to the previous one are :
- the use of the most recent version of the JPL KBR data (version 3),
- the use of the IGS orbits and clocks in replacement of the GRGS ones,
- a completely homogenous processing over the full time span,
- the use of AOD1B-RL06 for the dealiasing data in replacement of the ERA-Interim+TUGO products.

For the processing of the GRACE-FO data we have used the TUGRAZ transplant accelerometer data instead of the JPL one, resulting in a great stabilization of the accelerometer scale factors, now close to 1 over the full time span, in a reduction of the range-rate and GPS residuals and in an improvement of the gravity field solutions.

This presentation will focus on the processing details and on the comparison of this new series with the Release 06 from JPL / GFZ / CSR, the ITSG-Grace2018 time series from TUGRAZ, and the combined time series from the new international combination service COST-G.
Constructing a Time Series for Southern Ocean Currents Using GRACE
Authors: Meyer Jordan , Chambers Don
Published: October 2020

The currents of the Southern Ocean connect to every ocean basin and distribute water between them, making these currents an important quantity to monitor and understand as they change over time. In situ instrumentation is difficult to deploy within this region, however these currents create bottom pressure signals at major bathymetric obstacles which are observable by the GRACE and GRACE Follow-On satellites. 

    In this study, we examine the relationships between the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and the Antarctic Bottom Water within the Southern Ocean and the bottom pressure gradients at the Kerguelen Plateau seamount and the Drake Passage sill using the high resolution Southern Ocean State Estimate. Then we use these relationships along with bottom pressure gradients from the RL05 and RL06 mascon solutions from the Center for Space Research at the University of Texas at Austin to develop a real-life time series of the two currents.
THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL RESEARCH ETHICS: THREE CASES
Authors: Ess Charles , Franzke Aline shakti , Kaufmann Katja , Rauhala Marjo , Gudowsky-Blatakes Niklas , Rutzinger Martin , Bork-Hüffer Tabea , Hård af Segerstad Ylva , Vanacker Bastiaan
Published: October 2020

AoIR and the Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society (JICES) share common interests in critical reflection on the ethical and social dimensions of the internet and internet-facilitated communication, and have begun a collaboration aimed at collecting ethically-focused AoIR conference submissions for presentation and critique at AoIR, with a view towards subsequent publication in a special issue of JICES. This panel collects three papers that address these shared interests as specifically focused on research ethics. Paper 1, Integrating Mobile Eye-Tracking in a Mixed Methods Research Design: Ethical Standards and Practical Requirements, addresses the social and data ethical dimensions of the increasing use of Augmented Reality (AR) technologies in public spaces. Paper 2, The complex balancing act of researchers’ ethical and emotional capacities and responsibilities, takes up these issues from the first-hand experience of a researcher-participant who, as a bereaved parent, was requested to research a closed community for bereaved parents on Facebook. The wide range of ethical challenges here includes informed consent as distinctively difficult in these contexts. Paper 3, Digital Ethics and the Situationist Challenge to Virtue Ethics, evaluates recent applications of virtue ethics in digital media, arguing instead for a pragmatist, situation-based approach. These three papers thus expand AoIR’s signature focus on Internet Research Ethics through two empirically-oriented papers on research ethics/methods in two specific contexts, complimented by a more theoretical exploration of virtue ethics and pragmatism – and thereby dovetail with JICES’ interests in the ethics and social dimensions of ICTS.
LEGAL AND ETHICAL PERSPECTIVES ON (BIG) DATA, PLATFORMS, AI AND ALGORITHMS
Authors: Ess Charles , Franzke Aline shakti , Kwok Chi , Chan Ngai Keung , Bay Morten , Burk Dan
Published: October 2020

AoIR and the Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society (JICES) share common interests in critical reflection on the ethical and social dimensions of the internet and internet-facilitated communication, and have begun a collaboration aimed at collecting ethically-focused AoIR conference submissions for presentation and critique at AoIR, with a view towards subsequent publication in a special issue of JICES. This panel collects four papers exploring especially the legal and ethical dimensions of new technologies, including data collection and storage as public goods vis-à-vis central questions of justice (Paper 1, Towards a Political Theory of Data Justice: A Public Good Perspective); critiques from Western and non-Western positions of the utilitarianism otherwise driving the platforms’ business models and rationales (Paper 2, Google and Facebook VS Rawls and Lao-Tsu: How Silicon Valley’s utilitarianism and Confucianism are bad for Internet ethics); basic tensions between the rule of law vis-à-vis algorithmic “decision-making” processes in jurisprudence and “surveillance capitalism” (Paper 3, The Jurisprudence of Datafied Law); and a taxonomy of the ethics of AI, algorithms and big data based on an analysis of 90 guidelines from 2017-2020 (Paper 4, A systematic literature Review of ethical Code of Conducts in the field of Internet Research). These papers directly take up the central interests shared between AoIR and JICES in the ethical and social dimensions of the internet and internet-facilitated communication. They offer new insight on legal and ethical aspects of contemporary technologies, some of which will have specific implications for internet research ethics.
THE DEAD SPEAK: BIG DATA AND DIGITALLY MEDIATED DEATH
Authors: Grandinetti Justin , DeAtley Tyler , Bruinsma Jeffery
Published: October 2020

In the following panel, we add to scholarly challenges regarding the binary distinction between life and death by examining new strategies of making productive the data of the dead. Digital media and tactics of big data collection, storage, and processing blur the boundaries of human lifecycles, allowing the individual to exist as a productive part of sociotechnical apparatuses long after their corporeal demise. Specifically, our presentations on digital data and death focus on the topics of subjectivation, consent and privacy, and commodification. Reanimator: Haunted Data, Streaming Media, and Subjectivity examines the process of subjectivation taking into account the haunted data and digital afterlives of streaming media. Here, the living and bounded subject is challenged by compositions of big data, platforms, infrastructures, and algorithms that offer the possibility of a productive sociotechnical economic subject unbounded from the human body. Grief by the Byte: Constructions of Data Consent, Privacy, and Stability in Griefbots interrogates the data practices and ethics related to the creation of chatbots from the data of deceased individuals. While “griefbots” are framed as helpful to those grieving a lost loved one, there remain questions about consent and privacy that accompany these interactions. Finally, What is Dead May Never Die: The Commodification of Death in Social Media studies how user data maintains economic value after death via networks designed to surveil, collect, and commodify the immaterial labor of the dead. These practices enable a possible economic future largely influenced by the data of the dead.
‘COORDINATED INAUTHENTIC BEHAVIOUR’ AND OTHER ONLINE INFLUENCE OPERATIONS IN SOCIAL MEDIA SPACES
Authors: Keller Tobias , Graham Tim , Angus Dan , Bruns Axel , Nijmeijer Rolf , Nielbo Kristoffer Laigaard , Bechmann Anja , Neudert Lisa-Maria , Marchal Nahema , Bradshaw Samantha , Rossini Patrícia , Stromer-Galley Jennifer , Baptista Erica Anita , Veiga de Oliveira Vanessa
Published: October 2020

Recently, major social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have announced efforts to counter "coordinated inauthentic behaviour." However, scholarly research continues to provide evidence that coordinated human and automated accounts covertly seek to undermine and manipulate public debates on these platforms. Given the difficulties in obtaining data from these platforms to study these influence operations, and the significant challenge of identifying covert malinformation operations, further conceptual and methodological innovations are required. This panel brings together a selection of recent studies that advance the methods available for the forensic, mixed-methods, in-depth, and large-scale analysis of inauthentic information operations: Paper 1 investigates the arson disinformation campaign during the 2019-2020 Australian bushfire season. Paper 2 investigates the distribution and content monetisation strategies of junk news sources across a selection of five major social media platforms during the 2019 European Parliament campaign. Paper 3 explores whether Facebook's microtargeting advertising functionality allows political parties to promote conflicting narratives to different groups of people. Paper 4 studies the experience and engagement with malinformation by users of Facebook and WhatsApp, focussing on the current political environment in Brazil.
THE DATAFICATION OF CHILDHOOD: EXAMINING CHILDREN’S AND PARENTS’ DATA PRACTICES, CHILDREN’S RIGHT TO PRIVACY AND PARENTS’ DILEMMAS
Authors: Livingstone Sonia , Stoilova Mariya , Nandagiri Rishita , Milosevic Tijana , Zdrodowska Aldona , Mascheroni Giovanna , Zaffaroni Lorenzo Giuseppe , Cino Davide , Wartella Ellen Ann
Published: October 2020

In the age of continuous data collection and algorithmic predictions, children’s privacy seems threatened by the variety of surveillance and data practices in which parents, institutions, corporations and children themselves engage. The vast amount of data routinely collected about children as they grow up include data shared online, whether by children themselves (social media updates, web searches and browsing, data traces of their internet and smartphone use) or their parents (sharenting practices); data shared in the home, like conversations and environmental data captured by internet-connected devices such as smart speakers and internet connected toys; data shared outside the home, including educational and school apps, biometric data in schools and/or airports and stations, health data and medical records, geo-location apps or wearables, etc. Data can be knowingly shared with others, or “given off” as traces of online activities, and even inferred by algorithms that profile, classify and predict users’ behaviour. This panel on the datafication of childhood draws together a number of leading scholars in this area of research to explore questions and issues associated with children’s privacy online as both a protective and enabling right. The collection of papers in this panel contribute empirical data and theoretical insight on a range of relevant topics in the study of the datafication of childhood from the perspective of both children and parents. Based on qualitative and quantitative methods, the individual contributions to the panel illuminate the situated nature of data practices, their embeddedness in diverse contexts and practices of meaning-making through which children and parents negotiate online privacy.
DIGITAL LABOR SOLIDARITIES, COLLECTIVE FORMATIONS, AND RELATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURES
Authors: Soriano Cheryll Ruth , Grohmann Rafael , Chen Yujie , Karatzogianni Athina , Qiu Jack , Cabanes Jason Vincent , Alves Paula , Dey Andrija
Published: October 2020

Research on digital worker experiences have shed light on the problematic realities of digital labor, which include increasing levels of stress and anxiety over financial and career instability, physical exhaustion, and isolation - all of which underscore the precarity that belie the optimistic facade of labor under the new economy. Given the multiple constraints underlying collective formation among digital workers, this panel explores the characteristics and dynamics of emerging forms of collective organisation among digital workers by reflecting on experiences from China, the Philippines, Brazil, and India. Examining experiences of digital labor organisation and challenges to build solidarity across national and even regional experience, the panel hopes to enrich the discussion in terms of the politics, cultural nuances, and local meanings useful for examining digital worker expressions of resistance and solidarity amidst continuing technological development and platform reforms. This close examination of diverse forms of collective organisation, as well as the relational infrastructures underlying them, aims demonstrate how workers challenge the dominant claims of global capitalism while steep in recognition of the opportunities that these offer.
THE POLITICS OF DELETION IN THE BREXIT DEBATE
Authors: Bastos Marco
Published: October 2020

Literature on influence operations has identified metrics that are indicative of social media manipulation, but few studies have explored the lifecycle of low-quality information. We contribute to this literature by reconstructing nearly 3M messages posted by 1M users in the last days of the Brexit referendum campaign. While previous studies have found that on average only 4% of tweets disappear, we found that 33% of the tweets leading up to the referendum vote are no longer available. Only about half of the most active accounts that tweeted the referendum continue to operate publicly and 20% of all accounts are no longer active. We tested whether partisan content was more likely to disappear and found more messages from the Leave campaign that disappeared than the entire universe of tweets affiliated with the Remain campaign. We compare these results with a set of 45 hashtags posted in the same period and find that political campaigns present much higher ratios of user and tweet decay. These results are validated by inspecting 2M Brexit-related tweets posted over a period of nearly 4 years. The article concludes with an overview of these findings and recommendations for future research.
MORAL ECONOMIES OF OPEN DATA PLATFORMS
Authors: Burns Ryan , Welker Preston
Published: October 2020

Municipal open data platforms are currently caught in a range of tensions. They rely on an unspecified subject to analyze the data, and yet are surrounded by discourses of "empowerment" and "transparency". They are often most beneficient when approached with data science skills, yet often entail unremunerated digital labor. And they are often engaged by organizations tacking "for Social Good" onto their mandate - the Canada-wide organization Data for Good being a key example. To date, STS research has generated important insights into the political economies of data and platforms that highlight the ways they produce, mediate, circulate, and accumulate surplus and exchange value. Less attention has been devoted to understanding the ways moral values and sentiments are deployed to attract the digital volunteered labor subtending municipal open data platform usage. Those who mobilize these moral economies are deeply situated within capitalist platform economies, and benefit from the free labor of those wishing to improve their communities. In this presentation, we argue that hackathons, datathons, and open data platforms are constituted through moral economies that are entangled within technoscientific capitalist accumulation practices and logics. These moral economies are key ways in which digital labor is procured, and represent a core component of what Boltanski and Chiapello call the "new spirit of capitalism". To substantiate our argument, we draw on an ongoing long-term ethnography into Calgary, Alberta's open data ecosystem. We conclude by politicizing the fissures of these moral economies, to identify the new political strategies that they necessitate.
GUERILLA CAPITALISM AND THE PLATFORM ECONOMY: GOVERNING UBER IN CHINA,	TAIWAN, AND HONG KONG
Authors: Chan Ngai Keung , Kwok Chi
Published: October 2020

Platform firms, such as Uber and Airbnb, are emerging economic actors that aim at re-organizing the economic sectors they enter through challenging existing regulatory frameworks politically. While most studies focus on how platform firms’ political playbooks operate in European and North American democratic contexts, we know less about the regulatory and contestatory stories in non-Western and non-democratic contexts. This study aims to fill this lacuna by examining the governance of Uber in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. The three diverse political systems provide a comparative basis to how Uber's political playbook works in authoritarian (China), semi-authoritarian (Hong Kong), and democratic (Taiwan) systems, respectively. We introduce the concept of “guerilla capitalism” to describe how platform firms attempt to make a profit through exploiting legal grey zones or openly violating established laws. We present a critical discourse analysis of Uber’s public marketing materials, news coverage about Uber, and government reports about ride-hailing in the three cases. Our analysis illustrates (1) the convergent discursive and political strategies Uber employed to legitimize its business to change the law and (2) the divergent and contextual factors that lead to different regulatory outcomes. We argue that Uber’s operative logic lies at the swift accumulation of a large number of politically mobilizable customers and the formation of political coalitions with their customers; however, governmental responses to Uber's political playbook vary with regulatory contexts. Such an operative logic may re-shape power-relations in different political trajectories. This study affords significant opportunities for thinking about the comparative politics of platformization.
TWITTERING RESEARCH, CALLING OUT AND CANCELING CULTURES: A STORY AND	SOME QUESTIONS
Authors: De Castell Suzanne , Kennedy Helen W. , Atkinson Sarah , Jenson Jennifer , Thumlert Colleen
Published: October 2020

This is an analysis of how Twitter played a significant, agentive and accountable role in the difficult birth and premature unravelling of a government-funded international feminist research network. We situate this case study and this process of initiation and annihilation within the broader context within which social media platforms are a critical site of intensive affective discursive practices through which individual and institutional reputations can be made and unmade, frequently with far reaching professional and or personal consequences. To date there has been little academic study of both the broader implications of the potential benefits of social media for academic networking and the perils. Two data sets are analyzed comparatively, the first, detailed written responses from an in-person workshop designed explicitly to gather feedback on the research network; the second a set of tweets that erupted over a number of days shortly after that event. Content analysis of both data sets shows the impact of a small, localized Twitter event on an international network of researchers, demonstrating the speed and thoroughness with which decades of research and collaboration can be undone, and raising larger questions about the sustainability of culturally precarious trajectories of work -- in this case feminist work -- within Twitter’s increasingly hegemonic media ecology.
OPEN DATA PLATFORMS FOR A DATA COMMONS, HOW TO SUPPORT THE LIFE OF	DATA BEYOND RELEASE
Authors: Hamilton Hannah , De Paoli Stefano , Wilson Anna , Singh Greg
Published: October 2020

In this paper we will discuss the challenges and opportunities of infusing in open data a life beyond its original public release. Indeed, it is often unclear whether open data has a life beyond the one it was initially collected for, to the extent that some authors have even described the public reuse of government data as no more than a “myth”. We will present the results of the project Data Commons Scotland launched with the idea of creating an Internet based prototype platform for creating a trustworthy common of open data, thus facilitating a life for data beyond the one of the original producer. We will discuss the results of our empirical research for the project based on 31 qualitative interviews with a number of actors, such as data producers or citizens. Moreover, we will present the results of the co-design conducted for the design of the Data Commons Scotland platform. With the results of our analysis we will reflect on the challenges of building Internet based platforms for open data supporting the generation of a common.
FUCK YOUR FEELINGS: THE AFFECTIVE WEAPONISATION OF FACTS AND	REASON
Authors: Hong Sun-ha , Hermann Selena Neumark
Published: October 2020

This paper examines emerging trends in fact signaling: the performative invocation of the idea of Fact and Reason, distinct from the concrete presentation of evidence or reasoning, as a way to cultivate affective solidarity. Emblematic is the conservative influencer Ben Shapiro’s slogan, “facts don’t care about your feelings”: a paean to the mythological figure of emotionlessly objective truth which may then be weaponised against one’s enemies. Scholars are increasingly attentive to the ways in which what was once popularised as a ‘fake news’ epidemic is not simply a virulent strain of bad information in a fundamentally rational online ecosystem, but rather a broader crisis and transformation of what counts as truthful, trustworthy and authentic (e.g. Boler & Davis, 2018; also see Banet-Weiser, 2012). Our contribution emphasises the affective and habitual dimension of this phenomenon. Through a close analysis of Ben Shapiro’s content and personal brand, we show how the generic invocation of Fact and Reason cultivates a sense of affective attachment not defined by ideological consistency or, indeed, the actual practice of research or logical reasoning, but rather a particularly masculinised and adversarial ideal of Truth. The payoff is the reassurance and pleasure of a stable subject position from which one’s political opposition may be Othered with impunity. Facts may not care about your feelings, but insisting upon this fact is all about building a certain structure of feeling.
FACEBOOK: FROM PERSONAL MEDIUM TO MASS MEDIUM – AND BACK AGAIN? - THE	USE OF FACEBOOK ACROSS AGE GROUPS 2015-19
Authors: Jensen Jakob Linaa
Published: October 2020

This paper investigates how different age groups perceive Facebook as a personal medium and a mass medium, respectively, based on a time series analysis of Danish Internet users. As Denmark for long has been one of the countries with relatively most Facebook users and as Facebook plays an important role in everyday life and the public debate, data from Denmark might give good indications of Facebook’s development in general. This paper is based on five consecutive surveys among Danish Internet users, in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 (N between 1200 and 1500 each year). I focus on the use of different parts of Facebook across age groups; the personalized uses like Messenger, private groups and intimate communication, versus “mass media use” like reading news, organizational and political information and taking part in nationwide debates. I also investigate different age groups’ attitudes towards Facebook and whether they see it as a personal or a mass medium. First and foremost, I find notable differences across age groups. I also find that the differences are increasing over the years. In 2015 there were not significant differences in Facebook use across age groups. In 2019 a vast majority of the youngest, aged 18-30, used Facebook dominantly as a personalized medium, highlighting Messenger and private groups as their preferred ways of communication and interaction. The older generations have a much more diversified use, treating Facebook as a personal as well as a mass medium.
SOCIAL EXPECTATIONS OF AI AND THE PERFORMATIVITY OF ETHICS
Authors: Kerr Aphra , Barry Marguerite , Kelleher John
Published: October 2020

This article draws on the sociology of expectations to examine the construction of expectations of ‘ethical AI’ and considers the implications of these expectations for communication governance. We first analyse a range of public documents in the EU, the UK and Ireland to identify the key actors, mechanisms and issues which structure societal expectations around AI and an emerging discourse on ethics. We then explore expectations of AI and ethics through a survey of members of the public. We conclude that discourses of ‘ethical AI’ are generically performative, but to become more effective in practice we need to acknowledge the limitations of contemporary AI and the requirement for extensive human labour to deploy AI in specific societal contexts. An effective ethics of AI requires domain appropriate AI tools, updated professional practices, dignified places of work and robust regulatory and accountability frameworks.
SMART CITIES’ ENVIRONMENTAL DREAMS AND THEIR DIRTY MATERIAL	POLITICS
Authors: Kuntsman Adi
Published: October 2020

This paper draws on a study that included two types of materials: firstly, visual and textual analysis of a selection of smart cities’ websites; and secondly, a review of published literature on smart cities and the environment. In both, a celebratory narrative of environmental efficiency prevails. Although ecology is usually not the primary focus of smart cities’ self-promotion, their websites tell a story of how smart cities would ultimately make the environment better, cleaner, and greener. The literature, similarly, talks about “sharing cities”; “green growth”, “green infrastructure”, “progressive urbanisation”, “sustainable urbanism”, “green technology innovation”, “resilient cities”, “smart future” and more. However, despite the overwhelming rhetoric of being environmental saviours, smart cities pose multiple ecological threats, most of which are invisibilised, because they take place elsewhere: the extraction of resources needed to produce the actual devices; the toxicity of their production process and the e-waste left behind; and the rapidly increasing energy demands of data farms, needed to sustain every air pollution sensor, every city dashboard, every smart bus stop, every ‘smart’ communication network. At the heart of my paper lies a troubling, yet crucial question: how to reconcile the rapid and expansive adoption of various smart technologies into environmentally driven initiatives and sustainability projects such as smart cities, with the extensive environmental damages brought on by the digitization itself? How, in other words, can we think about smart cities environmental promises, while taking into account their dirty material politics?
RESEARCHING THE ROLE OF DIGITAL MEDIA IN ENABLING EDUCATIONAL	PARTICIPATION OF YOUNG REFUGEES
Authors: Kutscher Nadia , Fujii Michi
Published: October 2020

This paper presents an ongoing joint ethnographic research project by the University of Cologne and the Leuphana University Lüneburg, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF), focusing the role of digital media in facilitating young refugees‘ educational participation (“Bildungsteilhabe Geflüchteter im Kontext digitalisierter Bildungsarrangements”, 2019-2022), The project aims at reconstructing factors that enable educational participation of young refugees in digitally-mediated educational environments. In three extended phases of ethnographic field work (participant observations) and artefact analyses of digital media in non-formal educational contexts such as youth welfare institutions (e.g. residental groups, pedagogical family assistance and youth-cafés) formal educational contexts (e.g. schools, vocational training etc.) and informal spaces (e.g. family, peer activities etc.) implicit and unplanned as well as explicit and pedagogically planned uses of digital media are focused. The central research question in this paper is what importance (if any) does digital media (such as social media sites, apps, smartphones, learning software etc.) have in the everyday life of young refugees when it comes to educational practices and coping in the everyday life. In this context, practices and their relation to aspects of unequal basic conditions (e.g. level of education) and digital inequalities (e.g. reproduction of disadvantages in media usage, differences in media experiences etc.) are analyzed. This paper presents the empirical work in progress focusing methodological and ethical challenges in research at the intersection of sensitive areas such as forced migration, youth welfare, private life and schooling.