Today I will be discussing an article titled “How big data has changed politics.” This article is from cio.com. I found this article extremely interesting. Although this article is about the world of politics, a hot topic in today’s American society, it offers an excellent industry to analyze the technological tools used during a political campaign. Every time a politician begins campaigning, there are new technological tools that can be utilized that can grant that politician a competitive edge. In the case of this article, Kevin Rands, the author, writes how Big Data is utilized to influence how a politician wins an election. It is not just the data that aids a politician, but how that data is interpreted and then utilized for the campaign. The use of Big Data goes farther than just the campaign. It can, and is, utilized while that person is in office in order to determine what is going on in the areas that person represents if there are any problems, as well as any possible solutions to those problems. Depending on who you, ask Big Data in politics can either be a good thing or a bad thing. However, it is a definite requirement for all politicians to utilize if they want to be successful. Big Data is becoming more useful as people understand how to utilize it, and it is moving into every aspect of our lives. I think this raises an important question to consider – “Will there ever be too much data collected about a person that would cause a change in the way we interact online or cause a change in how much data is “legally” allowed to be harvested?” If our politicians use it to understand and help us, then there are people out there that could gather data to harm us.
Zois Bouikidis says
The use of data in elections is something that has been very interesting to me for some time. I think there are a lot of politicians who may take data into account when formulating their policy positions, However, I think that generally politicians can’t change their position significantly from that of what their party/constituents believe in the face of big data showing growing national changes. So for example, if data shows that a particular idea is growing in popularity on a national stage, a politician may not take this into account because their constituency may view the idea slightly differently. So, politicians are choosy in which data they choose to follow. The data they choose to follow is not the data that is the most popular among the people in the United States, but more accurately the data that is most popular among that politician’s constituency. This is especially true in the case of congresspersons.