Moving from small science to big science: Social and organizational impedimen...
Digital Research and Big Data: Is the Tail Wagging the Dog?
1. Digital Research and Big Data Ralph Schroeder & Eric T. Meyer
Oxford Internet Institute
University of Oxford
Is the Tail Wagging the Dog? [ralph.schroeder],[eric.meyer]@oii.ox.ac.uk
Big data are data that are unprecedented in scale and scope
in relation to a given phenomenon. They are often streams
of data (rather than fixed datasets), accumulating large volumes,
often at high velocity.
Is the tail of the availability of big data and computational methods
wagging the dog of good research questions?
If not, how do big data advance research?
What are the opportunities and challenges?
Source: Leonard John Matthews, CC-BY-SA (http://www.flickr.com/photos/mythoto/3033590171)
Case 1 Case 2 Case 3
Search Engine Behaviour Large-Scale Text Analysis Social Network or News?
Waller’s [1] analysis of Australian Google Michelet et al. [7] ‘culturomic’ analysis of Kwak et al.’s [17] analysis of Twitter
Users 5 Million Digitized Google Books and
Heuser & Le-Khac [8] of Key findings:
Key findings: 2779 19th Century British Novels - 1.47 billion social relations
- Mainly leisure - 2/3 of users are not followers or not
- > 2% contemporary issues Key findings: followed by any of their followings
- No perceptible ‘class’ differences - Patterns of key terms - Celebrities, politicians and news are
- Industrialization tied to shift from among top 20 being followed
Novel advance: abstract to concrete words
- Unprecedented insight into what Novel advance:
people search for Novel advance: - Volume of relations and topics
- Replicability, extension to other areas,
Challenge: systematic analysis of cultural materials Challenge:
- Replicability - News or social network needs to
- Securing access to commercial data Challenge: be contextualized in media ecology
- Data quality - Securing access to commercial data
Conclusions
Savage and Burrows? [6], who ask are commercial data outpacing social science?
Boyd and Crawford? [18], who ask if big data raise epistemological conundrums?
... No ...
The connection between research technologies and the advance of knowledge
The threats and opportunities represented by unprecended windows into people’s minds and thoughts
Does this lead to more ‘scientific’ (i.e. cumulative) social sciences and humanities?
References
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