The project investigates the research questions: How is open-source government code shared through code repositories such as GitHub, and which politics are imported with open-source code?

Tracing the ecosystems of government open-source code allows a peek into the engine room of government, where decisions impacting citizens and states are constructed and negotiated by software developers and public servants, offering insights into the circulation of the infrastructural components of public digitalization. The main site for the project is GitHub; an online open-source code repository where developers share source-code and engage in technical discussions. Combining two core STS method traditions, ethnography and digital methods (Rogers 2019), the project seeks to map interactions on GitHub using digital tools for scraping, analyzing and visualizing online data traces.

The mapping is supplemented by a digital ethnography (Pink et al. 2016) of GitHub discussion fora and interviews with developers and public servants involved in IT development about how they share and understand code. Output 1 single- and 2 co-authored articles (Big Data & Society, Journal of Digital Social Research), and a data sprint hosted by AAU’s TANTlab.

If you want to hear more, get in touch with assistant professor Alexei Tsinovoi, professor Anders Munk or PhD student Lasse Uhrskov Kristensen.