Anna Näslund & Karin Hansson 
Digital Culture & Society (DCS) [PDF ebook] 
Vol. 6, Issue 2/2020 – The Politics of Metadata

The design and use of metadata is always culturally, socially, and ideologically inflected. The actors, whether these are institutions (museums, archives, libraries, corporate image suppliers) or individuals (image producers, social media agents, researchers), as well as their agendas and interests, affect the character of metadata. There is a politics of metadata. This issue of Digital Culture & Society addresses the ideological and political aspects of metadata practices within image collections from an interdisciplinary perspective. The overall aim is to consider the implications, tensions, and challenges involved in the creation of metadata in terms of content, structure, searchability, and diversity.

Om författaren

Anna Näslund (former Dahlgren) is professor of art history at Stockholm University. She has written extensively on different aspects of visual culture, photography, media history, digitization, archives and museum practices. She has been the PI of several research projects, such as »The Politics of Metadata« and »Sharing the Visual Heritage« focusing different aspects of cultural heritage institutions image collections online, and media historical projects on social media photography and photo albums.
Karin Hansson, is an associate professor in computer and
systems sciences and part of the Politics of Metadata project at the Department of Culture and Aesthetics, Stockholm University. She has written extensively about technology-based participation from a design perspective.
Ramón Reichert (Dr. phil. habil.) teaches and researches as a senior researcher at the Department of Cultural Studies at the Universität für Angewandte Kunst in Vienna. Previously, he taught and researched in Basel, Berlin, Canberra, Fribourg, Helsinki, Sankt Gallen, Stockholm and Zurich and was EU project coordinator for many years. His current research project »Visual Politics and Protest. Artistic Research Project on the visual framing of the Russia-Ukraine War on internet portals and social media« (2022-2024) deals with the visual politics of violence, conflict and resistance.
}Amanda Wasielewski is a postdoctoral researcher in art history and part of the Politics of Metadata project at the Department of Culture and Aesthetics, Stockholm University. Wasielewski has taught social media and internet studies at the University of Amsterdam, architectural history at the Spitzer School of Architecture, and modern art history at Lehman College.