The grounded theory method to study data-enabled activism against corruption: Between global communicative infrastructures and local activists’ experiences of big data

Anti-corruption efforts from the grassroots that make use of digital media to hinder corrupt behaviors are flourishing worldwide. In many cases, these efforts see activists interact with big data along with other types of data. They do this in the framework of broader communicative infrastructure in which activists create, employ, and spread big data to support their struggles. As well, they do so differently, according to a diverse range of activists’ local situations across the world. The article uses examples of anti-corruption efforts in Brazil, India, and Spain to illustrate how the grounded theory method might help researchers to produce knowledge that escapes a universalistic and global vision of datafication detached from activists’ lived and local experiences. The article first briefly outlines what grounded theory is, the main steps in a grounded theory study, and its applications in media and communication studies. It then moves to a broader discussion of two relevant elements of grounded theory – sensitizing concepts and theoretical sampling – in taking into consideration data-enabled activism as an emergent phenomenon that might take many shapes. Then, it considers the emphasis on the situation in which data-enabled activism spreads out through a brief discussion of one relevant development of grounded theory, which is situational analysis, to solve the tension between the global and the local in data-enabled activism.