Your work has addressed new emerging potentials between civic tech and data journalism. What do you see as the main obstacles to realising these potentials of journalistic (big) data analyses? How can citizens be encouraged to contribute and participate in them? 

I see two main obstacles that could stand in the way of greater collaboration between civic technologies and data journalism. First, I have observed in my work that data journalism often focuses on a visually appealing presentation of existing datasets. As these datasets were collected by third parties, the socio-technical decisions that contributed to such a dataset are sometimes not sufficiently scrutinized. For example, an urban mobility dataset might contain data on cars, buses, trains and bicycles in a city, but pedestrians and people with special needs, e.g. with wheelchairs or strollers, are not always considered. Civic Tech, such as Wheelmap.org, can add such perspectives by providing new datasets, but journalists have to be aware of missing data first before they can include more data. Secondly, I have observed that the publishing routine in the media makes it difficult for journalists to collect missing datasets themselves. Of course, there are some impressive investigative projects (e.g. the Panama Papers investigation) that have produced new data, but such long-term projects are always difficult to fund. Other projects that describe themselves as Journalism Of Things, such as the Radmesser project (by German newsmedium Tagesspiegel) and Bienenlive (by German public broadcaster WDR/tactile.news), have had to apply for external funding to develop prototypes for new devices that can collect data for their stories. Such additional funding seems rather unusual and does not easily combine with the publishing logic of the media. When it comes to citizen participation, I think it is very important that participation is not an end in itself, but a means to achieve a broader goal. This goal could be a major media story on a topic of general interest to which citizens have contributed. In the Radmesser project, for example, around 100 volunteer cyclists collected traffic data for two months. This data was used to create maps of dangerous roads for cyclists in Berlin. The media story thus contributes to a changed perception of the traffic infrastructure in Berlin. 

How do infrastructures matter for citizens?  

Infrastructures are important for basic social needs, e.g. mobility, housing, work and education. A well-known definition of infrastructures is that infrastructures only become visible when they no longer function. I think this is correct, and it also shows why it is important to be aware of "invisible" infrastructures and in particular of the decisions that are made when new infrastructures are to be established. When planning and developing infrastructures, it is essential to include citizens' perspectives and needs in the planning process. Otherwise, certain needs could be overlooked and the infrastructures could be dysfunctional from the outset. For example, infrastructure decisions in the areas of mobility, production and housing have an impact on the quality of the air that citizens breathe. The large civic IoT and citizen science project Sensor.Community measures particulate pollution in numerous locations around the world to provide citizens with information about the air quality in their neighborhoods. Such widespread data collection infrastructure challenges the few public monitoring stations and shows how engaged citizens can take action for their needs. I believe that it is important to continuously think about infrastructures and their functionality over time and how they contribute or do not contribute (anymore) to the needs of citizens. 

How should knowledge about infrastructures be communicated and what role can journalists, researchers or public officials play?  

On the one hand, it is important to publicize an infrastructure at its location and let people know that it is there. Especially if it is a data infrastructure, people need to know whether data is being collected about/with them. For example, bike counters with a public screen displaying the bikes counted are a good way to collect traffic data and raise awareness of the data collection itself and of cycling as an alternative mode of transportation. Such counters can easily be addressed in media articles and public speeches, so that citizens' knowledge about bicycle data can grow. However, in some cases, bike or other meters are placed on the street and local people are *not* informed about the data collection they are contributing to. I find this problematic to some degree because citizens can't further engage with the data that is being collected about them, and because it's unclear what this data is or isn't being used for. Especially when you consider that public money was usually used to install the counting devices, such hidden applications are rather unethical. 

On the other hand, critical infrastructures would differ in this respect. For example, I do not see the need for public knowledge sharing in the case of telecommunications infrastructure sites, energy infrastructure and public transport infrastructure. The reason for this is that in order to safeguard the basic functionality of critical infrastructures and to prevent attacks on the technology of these infrastructures, only designated experts and officials should have access to them. I do not believe that opening knowledge about all critical infrastructures helps citizens per se. Moreover, there are anti-democratic forces in the world that could easily use this knowledge to do harm.  

Ultimately, there should be sufficient public knowledge about infrastructures to enable societal discourse and debate about existing and future (critical) infrastructures and to promote change where necessary. It is the responsibility of journalists, civil servants, researchers and others to ensure that the wider society is correctly informed about the existing and planned infrastructures. The ideology of investigative journalism could guide the balance between transparency and opacity of public knowledge about infrastructures.