ACM TechNews
The Next Big Thing in Humanities, Arts and Social Science Computing: Cultural Analytics
HPC Wire (07/29/08) Franklin, Kevin D.; Rodriguez'G, Karen
In this article University of California, San Diego professor Lev Manovich
talks about cultural analytics, which he describes as a new approach to
culture facilitated by the convergence of the arts, humanities, social
science, and digital technologies. He notes that computer-based analysis
and visualization of large data sets and data flows are important tools
used by science, business, government, and other entities, and that these
methods should be applied to cultural data, which is abundant thanks to
digitization initiatives by museums, libraries, and companies over the last
decade, and the prosperous growth of cultural Web content. Among the
things Manovich cites as key sources for cultural data sets are media
content; digital traces left by people's discussion, generation,
publication, consumption, sharing, editing, and remixing of the media; Web
sites that supply statistics about cultural preferences, popularity, and
cultural consumption in different areas; and blogs that document the most
notable developments in various cultural areas. Manovich says his interest
lies in the analysis and visualization of patterns in both past and present
culture, the application of statistical analysis on visual media, and the
use of this work as an interface for computational analysis. He expects
user-generated content and professionally produced content to grow rapidly
in keeping with current trends, and that the use of supercomputers for
cultural analytics is justified by the massive data sets this will entail.
"I feel that the ground has been set to start thinking of culture as data
[including media content and people's creative and social activities around
this content] that can be mined and visualized," Manovich says. "In other
words, if data analysis, data mining, and visualization have been adopted
by scientists, businesses, and government agencies as a new way to generate
knowledge, let us apply the same approach to understanding culture."
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