Big Data, gathered together and re-analysed, can be used to form endless variations of our persons - so-called ‘data doubles’. Whilst never a precise portrayal of who we are, they unarguably contain glimpses of details about us that, when deployed into various routines (such as management, policing and advertising) can affect us in many ways. How are we to deal with Big Data? When is it beneficial to us? When is it harmful? How might we regulate it? Offering careful and critical analyses, this timely volume aims to broaden well-informed, unprejudiced discourse, focusing on: the tenets of Big Data, the politics of governance and regulation; and Big Data practices, performance and resistance. An interdisciplinary volume, The Politics of Big Data will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as postdoctoral and senior researchers interested in fields such as Technology, Politics and Surveillance.

1.Sætnan, Schneider and Green: The politics of Big Data: Big Data, big brother? Introduction to the volume Section One) Principles and Paradigms: Questioning the tenets of Big Data 2) Saetnan: The haystack fallacy, or why Big Data provides little security 3) Matzner: Grasping the ethics and politics of algorithms 4) Strauss: Big Data – within the tides of securitisation? 5) Matzner: Surveillance as critical paradigm for Big Data? Section Two) Big Data Policies: Politics of Governance and Regulation 6) Rieder: Tracing Big Data imaginaries through public policy: The case of the European Commission 7) Pasquale: The automated public sphere 8) Schneider: Bringing the state back in: Big Data-based capitalism, disruption, and novel regulatory approaches in Europe 9) Simões and Jerónimo: Rear window - transparent citizens versus political participation 10) Tøndel and Sætnan: Fading dots, disappearing lines – Surveillance and Big Data in news media after the Snowden revelations Section Three) Performance is Political: Big Data Practices, Performance, and Resistance 11) Bellanova and Gonzalez Fuster: No (Big) Data, no fiction? Thinking surveillance with/against Netflix 12) Fleischhack: ‘Data trainings’ in German schools – Learning empowerment from hackers 13) Ochs: Self-protection beyond the self: Collective privacy practices in (Big) datascapes 14) Noorman/Wessels/Sveinsdottir/Wyatt: Understanding the ‘open’ in making research data open: Policy rhetoric and research practice Postscript: 15) Green: Postscript: Big Data’s methodological challenges