Thick big data : doing digital social sciences / Dariusz Jemielniak.

Thick big data : doing digital social sciences / Dariusz Jemielniak.

9780191897351 (electronic book)

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2020.

English

1 online resource (208 pages).

H61.3

300.285

The social sciences are becoming datafied. The questions once considered the domain of sociologists are now answered by data scientists operating on large datasets and breaking with methodological tradition, for better or worse. The traditional social sciences, such as sociology or anthropology, are under the double threat of becoming marginalised or even irrelevant, both from new methods of research which require more computational skills and from increasing competition from the corporate world which gains an additional advantage based on data access. However, unlike data scientists, sociologists and anthropologists have a long history of doing qualitative research. The more quantified datasets we have, the more difficult it is to interpret them without adding layers of qualitative interpretation. Big Data therefore needs Thick Data.

The social sciences are becoming datafied. The questions once considered the domain of sociologists are now answered by data scientists operating on large datasets and breaking with methodological tradition, for better or worse. The traditional social sciences, such as sociology or anthropology, are under the double threat of becoming marginalised or even irrelevant, both from new methods of research which require more computational skills and from increasing competition from the corporate world which gains an additional advantage based on data access. However, unlike data scientists, sociologists and anthropologists have a long history of doing qualitative research. The more quantified datasets we have, the more difficult it is to interpret them without adding layers of qualitative interpretation. Big Data therefore needs Thick Data.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

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Description based on online resource; title from home page (viewed on April 24, 2020).

Oxford scholarship online.

Print version: 9780198839705

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