This short article argues that an adequate response to the implications for governance raised by ‘Big Data’ requires much more attention to agency and reflexivity than theories of ‘algorithmic power’ have so far allowed. It develops this through two contrasting examples: the sociological study of social actors used of analytics to meet their own social ends (for example, by community organisations) and the study of actors’ attempts to build an economy of information more open to civic intervention than the existing one (for example, in the environmental sphere). The article concludes with a consideration of the broader norms that might contextualise these empirical studies, and proposes that they can be understood in terms of the notion of voice, although the practical implementation of voice as a norm means that voice must sometimes be considered via the notion of transparency.

AcknowledgementsResearch results presented in this paper were developed with the support of a Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council postdoctoral fellowship. IntroductionThe commercial success of open source software, along with a broader socio-cultural shift towards participation in media and cultural production, have inspired attempts to extend and expand open-source practices, for example into the realm of culture through 'Free Culture' movements (Lessig, 2004; Gautlett, 2010)

1What should be our orientation to the socio-technical as climate predictions worsen; ecological crises and wars escalate mass migration and refugee numbers; right-wing populism sweeps through politics; automation threatens workers' jobs and austerity policies destabilize society? What is to be done when it is not "business as usual" and even broken concepts of progress seem no longer to be progressing? We ask how to design for the common good, focusing on human needs for meaning, fulfillment, dignity and decency, qualities which technology struggles to support but can easily undermine. We juxtapose the design of computing that offers hope with that which offers only distraction, propose four modes to design for (being attentive, critical, different and in it together) and conclude with a plea to avoid tools that encourage a blinkered existence at a time of great uncertainty and change.

As the Internet, and broadband in particular, becomes a platform for social and political engagement, researchers investigate more carefully both the factors that drive broadband adoption and the barriers that constrain it. This paper reports on one of the only large‐scale qualitative studies of the barriers to broadband adoption in the United States, where 30% of the population lack broadband access. The primary research question asks: how can we qualitatively understand barriers to broadband adoption among low‐income communities? The study's community‐based approach, undertaken in four regions of the country, reveals the complex equilibrium of broadband adoption. Drawing from 170 interviews with broadband non‐adopters as well as community access providers and other intermediaries, this study finds that price is only one factor shaping home broadband adoption, and that libraries and other community organizations fill the gap between low home adoption and high demand for broadband. These intermediaries compensate for shortages in digital skills that also constitute barriers to adoption in a context where broadband is essential for gaining access to jobs, education, and e‐government. These three main findings suggest that low‐income people like our research participants are playing roles as actors in an ecology of broadband access games (Dutton et al. 2004). In particular, they are overcoming barriers to being online in order to participate in accessing services and gaining education. This is part of the process of defining broadband as an infrastructure for e‐democracy. The paper recommends a renewed focus on factors that sustain home access rather than drive demand, as well as support for community intermediaries in provisioning public broadband access within a context of skill shortages. It recommends further qualitative research to better understand the role of diverse populations in framing the value of broadband access.