The Unit of Research, Publication and Public Service (UP3M) of FISIPOL UGM held a discussion concerning the use of Big Data (31/10). This discussion narrated several social phenomena that occurred due to the use of Big Data; such as echo chambers, filter bubbles and the thickening of ideologies. These big data-related phenomena, according to Arya, signify the urgency of social researches using big data in understanding more social-political phenomena in the modern society.
In this discussion, UP3M invited Dr. Mahmud Syaltout, S.H., DEA, the Head Analyst of ANP-INSIGHT and a Lecturer in the Paramadina Graduate School as a speaker. His experiences in ANP-INSIGHT, a provider of information, analyses and business strategies based on data, made Mahmud a renowned figure in the realm of big data processing and has served in several major companies and governmental institutions in Indonesia.
Using the term ‘intercourse with data’, Mahmud convinced that the key of using big data for various purposes, ranging obtaining information until conducting a research, is the familiarity with the data themselves. “We can no longer be clueless with data, but we should be comfortable and have objective targets, whether they are procreation or prorecreation,” Mahmud stated.
From research visualisation itself, Mahmud conveyed that the participation of the audience is the key difference with traditional social research and big data-based research. Besides that, a big data-based research tends to be not static and has more modern designs. “The explanation regarding the results of the research is no longer one way, from the researcher towards the audience, but the visualization and understanding regarding the findings of the research are highly based on the perspectives of the audience that see it,” Mahmud stated.
In the question-and-answer session, several interesting questions were delivered by the participants of the discussion. One question was inquired regarding the ethical code of extracting and processing big data. The issue of ethical code itself has long been discussed in numerous studies. Some include the reviews by Jeffrey F. Rayport in the MIT Technology Review, as well as by Mandy Chessell from IBM that also proposed regarding ethical code in big data.
Besides discussing regarding the ethical code, the discussion also mentioned regarding the issue of social research presentation in Indonesian universities, which often still utilize static traditional methods.
Translated by : Ariq Dmitri Andrei