Blog 4- information visualization & distant reading
As we are moving on with our learning of Digital Humanities and its vast variety of classification chapter 6 and 7 discuss information visualization and distant reading. Beginning with chapter 6, information visualization is generally speaking a way to show quantified data in a visual manor. Often times these visualizations are forms of graphs, charts or diagrams and assess specific patterns within large amounts of data. One piece from this chapter that I wanted to focus on was how to specifically read these visualizations and understand all of the components. The relationship of data to visualization is to try and find the most reasonable way to portray information and what certain aspects of the visualization are going to best serve the viewers.
Close reading and distant reading are differing terms that relate to analyzing text. Close reading is careful and detailed analysis of a singular text rather distant reading is of large bodies of text that focus on patterns and trends. There are arguments surrounding the terms and the intent behind the meanings. A quote that I liked pertaining close reading to distant reading from Problems of Scale is "Franco Moretti and Middleton to coin two very different kinds of “distant reading,” then it is the homogeneity of the phrase “close reading” that allows them to both coin such a phrase as “distant reading” in the first place. Looking at “close reading” enables one to look at this double quality that has helped make the term such a mainstay of the profession" (Jin, 107). In order to create visualizations, there must be distant readers to search and analyze for the data that can then be turned into information visualization.
Distant reading often relies on information and visualization to make sense of large amounts of data. Both methods are powerful because they allow us scholars to draw conclusions from data that are generally impossible to process manually, which offers more ways to explore and interpret the humanities.
I like how you commented on how both close reading an distant reading are both important interpretational tools. In the readings on distant reading, it seemed that often these to types of analysis are compared to one another with the hopes of deducing which one is "better" in terms of the insights they provide. To me, it seems like it both can be applied in effective ways, but will yield different types of information. For example, the "Six Degrees of Francis Bacon" project represents the social network of Sir Francis Bacon. The benefits of this project include the collaborative aspect of it along with the capacity for information to be added or changed. However, the benefit of looking at the actual documentation of correspondence or relationships would be the additional context they provide.
ReplyDeleteYes, you really need a balance of close and distant reading to help better understand a text. One is certainly not better, just different views.
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