Research Methods for Reading Digital Data in the Digital Humanities
Published on 15. February 2016
Book
Paperback/Softback
256 pages
978-1-4744-0961-2 (ISBN)
Description
The first volume to introduce the techniques and methods of reading digital material for research
Digital Humanities has become one of the new domains of academe at the interface of technological development, epistemological change, and methodological concerns. This volume explores how digital material might be read or utilized in research, whether that material is digitally born as fanfiction, for example, mostly is, or transposed from other sources. The volume asks questions such as what happens when text is transformed from printed into digital matter, and how that impacts on the methods we bring to bear on exploring that technologized matter, for example in the case of digital editions. Issues such as how to analyse visual material in digital archives or Twitter feeds, how to engage in data mining, what it means to undertake crowd-sourcing, big data, and what digital network analyses can tell us about online interactions are dealt with. This will give Humanities researchers ideas for doing digitally based research and also suggest ways of engaging with new digital research methods.
Key features
First volume centred on the navigation and interpretation of digital material as research methods in the Humanities
Up-to-date analyses of issues and methods including big data, crowdsourcing, digital network analysis, working with digital additions
Based on actual research projects such as para-textual work with fanfiction, reading twitter, different kinds of distant and close readings
Digital Humanities has become one of the new domains of academe at the interface of technological development, epistemological change, and methodological concerns. This volume explores how digital material might be read or utilized in research, whether that material is digitally born as fanfiction, for example, mostly is, or transposed from other sources. The volume asks questions such as what happens when text is transformed from printed into digital matter, and how that impacts on the methods we bring to bear on exploring that technologized matter, for example in the case of digital editions. Issues such as how to analyse visual material in digital archives or Twitter feeds, how to engage in data mining, what it means to undertake crowd-sourcing, big data, and what digital network analyses can tell us about online interactions are dealt with. This will give Humanities researchers ideas for doing digitally based research and also suggest ways of engaging with new digital research methods.
Key features
First volume centred on the navigation and interpretation of digital material as research methods in the Humanities
Up-to-date analyses of issues and methods including big data, crowdsourcing, digital network analysis, working with digital additions
Based on actual research projects such as para-textual work with fanfiction, reading twitter, different kinds of distant and close readings
Reviews / Votes
Reading Digital Data, alongside its companion volume, offers an approachable introduction to digital humanities research methods without swamping the non-specialist reader with terminology and technical debates. This ensures that the audience can expand beyond digital humanists to those who practice more traditional elements of DH's constituent disciplines. -- University of Stirling * Simon Rowberry *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Illustrations
12 black and white illustrations, 12 black and white tables
Dimensions
Height: 233 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
354 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4744-0961-2 (9781474409612)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Gabriele Griffin is Chair in Gender Research at Uppsala University, Sweden. She has a long-standing research interest in research methods for the Humanities, and in women's cultural production. Recent publications include The Emotional Politics of Research Collaboration (co-ed.; Routledge 2013) and The Social Politics of Research Collaboration (co-ed.; Routledge 2013). She is editor of the 'research Methods for the Arts and Humanities' series (Edinburgh UP). Matt Hayler is a Lecturer in post-1980s Literature at the University of Birmingham specializing in Digital and Cyberculture Studies, specifically (post)phenomenology and Cognitive Science influenced approaches to e-reading and to technology more broadly. Recent publications include Challenging the Phenomena of Technology (Palgrave 2015) and chapters on technology and the digital humanities in forthcoming volumes on Futures for English Studies (Palgrave 2016, co-written with Marilyn Deegan) and Theatre Performance and Cognition (Methuen 2016).
Content
Introduction, Gabriele Griffin and Matt Hayler; 2. Matter Matters: The Effects of Materiality and the Move from Page to Screen, Matt Hayler; 3. Reading the Visual Page in the Digital Archive, Nathalie M. Houston; 4. Paratextual Navigation as a Research Method: Fan Fiction Archives and Reader Instructions, Maria Lindgren Leavenworth; 5. Data Mining and Word Frequency Analysis, Dawn Archer; 6. Reading Twitter: Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in the Interpretation of Twitter Material, Stefan Gelfgren; 7. Reading Small Data in Indigenous Contexts: Ethical Perspectives, Coppelie Cocq; Knowing Your Crowd: An Essential Component to Crowdsourcing Research, Gabriel K. Wolfenstein; 9. Fantasies of Scientificity: Ethnographic Identity and the Use of QDA Software, Anna Johansson and Anna Sofia Lundgren; 10. Digital Network Analysis: Understanding Everyday Online Discourse Micro- and Macroscopically, Robert Glenn Howard; 11. Dealing with Big Data, Tobias Blanke and Andrew Prescott; Notes on Contributors; Index.