ACDH Lecture 4.1

Jennifer Edmond
FAHSS, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

What can Big Data Research Learn from the Humanities?

One of the major terminological forces driving ICT development today is that of ‘big data.’ While the phrase may sound inclusive and integrative, in fact, ‘big data’ approaches are highly selective, excluding, as they do, any input that cannot be effectively structured, represented, or, indeed, digitised. Data of this messy, dirty sort is precisely the kind that humanities and cultural researchers deal with best, however.  In particular, knowledge creation and information management approaches from the humanities shed light on gaps such as: the manner in which data that are not digitised or shared become ‘hidden’ from aggregation systems; the fact that data are human created, and lack the objectivity often ascribed to the term; and the subtle ways in which data that are complex almost always become simplified before they can be aggregated. Humanities insight also exposes the problematic discursive strategies that big data research deploys, strategies that can be seen reflected not only in the research outputs of the field, but also in many of the urgent challenges our digitised society faces.