At first glance, “distant reading” and “cultural analytics” might seem eerily similar. They both strive to solve the problem of the limited perspective of analyzing small data sets (since humans can only see and read so many texts and images in a lifetime of work). Both concepts look towards technology to help solve this issue. “Having at our disposal very large cultural data sets which can be analyzed automatically with computers and explored using interactive interfaces and visualization opens up existing new possibilities” “Distant reading” and “cultural analytics” are two such mechanisms that have been suggested as two new possibilities.
Frank Moretti doesn’t believe that reading more will help. “The trouble with close reading is that it necessarily depends on an extremely small canon” (“What is Distant Reading?”). Different, not more, is key. Moretti’s solution is “distant reading,” “understanding literature not by studying particular texts, but by aggregating and analyzing massive amounts of data.” Essentially, Moretti’s solution is to stop reading books altogether. The more that needs to be analyzed, the larger the distance from reading must be. Moretti believes, “Distant reading…allows you to focus on units that are much smaller or much larger than in the text…And if, between the very small and the very large, the text itself disappears, well, it is one of those cases when one can justifiably say, Less is more. If we want to understand the system in its entirety, we must accept losing something.”
With digital repositories populating the internet, giving scholars greater access to materials they may never have accessed in their entire lifetimes, the act of researching is getting a new look in the form of analyzing complex and massive digital data sets. Manovich, Douglass, and Zepel note in their article “How to Compare One Million Images?”, noting this need, state that, “we need to be able to examine details of individual images and to find patterns of difference and similarity across large numbers of images. To do this, we need a mechanism that would allow us to precisely compare sets of images of any size – from a few dozens to millions.” Another mechanism that could address this need is “cultural analytics.” According to the article, “What is Cultural Analytics?,” Cultural analytics is defined as “the use of computational and visualization methods for the analysis of massive cultural data sets and flows.” It goes on to say that it can be a, “discovery of new concepts and alternative ways to visualize and understand human cultural history and the present.” Greater depths and clarity in research and knowledge collection could be achieved. “This would enrich our understanding of any single artifact because we would see it in relation to precisely delineated larger patterns.”
Whereas “distant reading” seeks to go from one end of the spectrum (reading as much as humanly possible) to the other (not reading at all) when assessing a given pattern, “cultural analytics” seeks a middle ground, or greater interaction with the data sets being analyzed. “Rather than choosing one scale of analysis, we would be able to easily traverse between all [of] them at will, observing patterns at any scale.” Culture analytics seeks to interpret and display small and large scale relationships between data sets.
Amber Sophia 