Blog Post 4: Information Visualization & Distant Readings

    In response to Chapter 6 in The Digital Humanities Coursebook: Information Visualization I found that the idea of visualization can be extremely useful if used correctly. In the way that the use of a chart in an article can provide a better understanding but it could also create even more confusion. In the “What is Distant Reading?” article that references Lit Labs' new practice of distant reading, I found their theory to be very thought-provoking. Specifically, the section where computers and humans and identify genres and how they differ. The fact that humans identify gothic with images and fantasy elements and computers identify gothic in a more analytical approach specifically looking at the gothic diction. These quantitative models can provide educational gain for people all over the world with the use of distance reading. In the article “Problems of Scale in ‘Close’ and ‘Distant’ Reading” by Jay Jin the compares and contrasts close and distant reading. As well as their origins and how they are used in today's time. A segment of the reading that stood out to me was their definition of distant reading where they compared it to two scales “the scale of evidence (a line of poetry, a poem, a passage) and the scale of the resulting interpretive claim.” I thought this was very insightful and it provided me with a better understanding of distant readings. 

    The website “Six Degrees of Francis Bacon” demonstrates distant reading in various ways specifically by visualization tools, statistical insights, and network analysis. It uses visualization tools by providing an easily accessible way to dive into Bacon's life and how the different groups of people were associated with him. Regarding the statistical analysis, the site dives into the connections of each of the people which range from social to cultural connections. And lastly the network analysis of finding the most significant people in the network easily by the structure of the web. Unfortunately, I was not able to access the website “Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow” due to the website not being safe for my computer. However, the description of the website looked like they used visualization techniques as well to provide a source of information.

Comments

  1. Dr. MSeptember 23, 2024 at 12:10 PM

    As we will see in the coming week, both scales are significant when interpreting/analyzing a literary text, in very different ways.

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