STS, Meet Data Science, Once Again

Abstract

Science and technology studies (STS) and the emerging field of data science share surprising elective affinities. At the growing intersections of these fields, there will be many opportunities and not a few thorny difficulties for STS scholars. First, I discuss how both fields frame the rollout of data science as a simultaneously social and technical endeavor, even if in distinct ways and for diverging purposes. Second, I discuss the logic of domains in contemporary computer, information, and data science circles. While STS is often agnostic about the borders between the sciences or with industry and state—occasionally taking those boundaries as an object of study—data science takes those boundaries as its target to overcome. These two elective affinities present analytic and practical challenges for STS but also opportunities for engagement. Overall, in addition to these typifications, I urge STS scholars to strategically position themselves to investigate and contribute to the breadth of transformations that seek to touch virtually every science and newly bind spheres of academy, industry, and state.