"This essay argues that Latin American scholarship and movement practice are key to understanding the dynamics of the datafied society and countering its inequities. Examining the sources of inspiration of a frontrunner seeking to decolonize the datafied society – the Big Data from the South Initi ... ative (BigDataSur) – we review Martín-Barbero’s ontological shift from media to mediations, Freire’s methodology centring individual agency and empowerment as a structural task of society, Mignolo’s invite to take decoloniality as a praxis rather than merely an idea, Rodríguez’s first-hand engagement with technology at the margins, Escobar’s autonomous design for the pluriverse, and the critical ecology of eco-social movements. We engage with a new generation of Latin American thinkers who turn their gaze to core problems of today’s systems of knowledge production, be they media or academia. Learning from these scholars, we warn against decolonial reductionism, namely the trend to evoke decolonial ideas and theories without fully committing to putting them into practice. We maintain that to decolonize datafication, we ought to also change how we generate knowledge about the datafied society. We outline three practical strategies that foster an open-ended dialogue on alternative approaches to datafication and scientific practice: multilingualism, public scholarship, and mentorship." (Abstract) more

"In the first pandemic of the datafied society, the disempowered were denied a voice in the heavily quantified mainstream narrative. Featuring stories of invisibility, injustice, hope and resistance, this book gives voice to communities at the margins in the Global South and beyond. The multilingual ... , polycentric and pluriversal narration invites the reader to enact and experience “Big Data from the South(s)” as a decolonial lens to read the pandemic." (Back cover) more

"Community media represent a crucial input in development processes, playing an important role in democratisation, social struggles, and awareness raising. But they often face difficulties on the financial and legal levels due to the constraints created by national media laws. This paper shows the l ... ink between community communication and human development. It provides suggestions for development advocates and communities regarding advocacy for a policy environment supportive of community media. It reflects on the licensing process and financial sustainability of the projects. In demonstrating how practically media policy can be reshaped to meet civil society needs, two case studies are considered: the UK, where the communication regulator has opened a process to license community radios; and Brazil, where thousands of ‘illegal’ community stations are facing repression, but where the regulator has inaugurated a consultation process with practitioners." (Abstract) more