https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476420919693 Television & New Media 2020, Vol. 21(6) 562–567 © The Author(s) 2020 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/1527476420919693 journals.sagepub.com/home/tvn Article Data Civics: A Response to the “Ethical Turn” Mark Andrejevic 1 Abstract In addition to the recent proliferation of approaches, programs, and research centers devoted to ethical data and Artifiical Intelligence, it is becoming increasingly clear that we need to directly address the political question. Ethics, while crucial, comprise only an indirect response to recent concerns about the political uses and misuses of data mining, AI, and automated processes. If we are concerned about the impact of digital media on democracy, it will be important to consider what it might mean to foster democratic arrangements for the collection and use of data, and for the institutions that perform these tasks. This essay considers what it might mean to supplement ethical concerns with political ones. It argues for the importance of considering the tensions between civic life and the wholesale commercialization of news, information, and entertainment platforms—and how these are exacerbated by the dominant economic model of data-driven hyper-customization. Keywords data ethics, civics, artificial intelligence, democracy, social media, data mining As the editors note in their introduction to this special issue, Television & New Media’s appearance coincided with the dawn of the new millennium, a media moment that combined its own promise of renewed opportunity with its distinctive threat: that posed by the “millennium bug.” There was much relief in the early moments of the New Year, when it became clear that fears of wholesale system failure on the part of our pervasive digital infrastructures had been drastically overhyped. Or perhaps we had simply misdirected our attention. In the intervening years, as the memory of Y2K faded into obscurity, it has become increasingly apparent that the real 1 Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia Corresponding Author: Mark Andrejevic, School of Media, Film and Journalism, Monash University, 900 Dandenong Road Caulfield, Melbourne, Victoria 3186, Australia. Email: mark.andrejevic@monash.edu 919693TVN XX X 10.1177/1527476420919693Television & New MediaAndrejevic research-article 2020