Digital technologies are reconfiguring organizations and their environments. Activities are increasingly distributed across fields and coordinated by data, algorithms and machines. This paper investigates data objects (objects made of data structured and aggregated under a specific template) and their role in structuring fields and field practices. It studies programmatic advertising, an automated bidding process with hundreds of participants, whereby media spaces are auctioned in real-time as individual users browse online content. To work on such a large scale, programmatic advertising must standardize existing field knowledge into data and coordinate collective action through objects, algorithms and technologies. This study shows how data, data objects and their infrastructures are involved in transforming the links between institutions and practice. The makeup and functioning of data and data objects reorient existing cognitive, normative and regulative structures, constrain the rule of engagement of actors and enable field-level autonomous interaction. The datafication of knowledge and automation of practices exposed in this paper call for a thorough rethinking of existing approaches to the concept of fields.

数字技术正在重新配置组织及其环境。活动越来越多地分布在各个领域，并通过数据、算法和机器进行协调。本文研究了数据对象（由特定模板下结构化和聚合的数据组成的对象）及其在结构化领域和领域实践中的作用。它研究程序化广告，这是一个有数百名参与者的自动竞标过程，当个人用户浏览在线内容时，媒体空间会实时拍卖。要进行如此大规模的工作，程序化广告必须将现有的领域知识标准化为数据，并通过对象、算法和技术协调集体行动。这项研究显示了数据如何，数据对象及其基础设施参与转变机构与实践之间的联系。数据和数据对象的构成和功能重新定位了现有的认知、规范和监管结构，限制了参与者的参与规则，并实现了现场层面的自主交互。本文中公开的知识数据化和实践自动化要求彻底重新思考现有的领域概念方法。