Cultural Analytics
Cultural analytics is “the analysis of massive cultural datasets and flows using computational and visualization techniques” (Manovich, 2016). It makes extensive use of computational approaches to analyze cultural artifacts in visual media. The goal is to extract a large set of features that represent the structure and content of which characterize their structure and content, such as colour characteristics, line orientations, texture, etc. (Manovich, 2009). The emphasis on visual media is one of the features distinguishing cultural analytics from text-based areas in the digital humanities. Analogous to distant reading, the objects of cultural analytics scholarship are large collections of visual material. Cultural analytics has been used to study cultural artifacts such as films, video games, magazines and other popular publications, artwork, photographs, and user-generated content. Because of the importance of computational processing, machine learning approaches, image processing, advanced visualization techniques and visual analytics, statistical analysis, and exploratory data analysis.
Because cultural analytics research often requires the analysis of very large, visually oriented collections and social media networks, Big Data processing is an important aspect of the field. Visual analytics is also important, because the combination of computational methods with advanced interactive visualization techniques leverage human cognitive capabilities to detect patterns and structures in Big Data.
The methods of cultural analytics can also be used to address research questions in digital culture, sometimes called Internet culture, or cyberculture, in which human communication, commerce, and recreation (e.g., online gaming) is performed mainly through computer network technology. Digital culture is particularly concerned with the study of online communities and social media.
Cultural analytics has a synergistic relationship with Internet Studies because it addresses research in digital culture. It is also related to Software Studies, as it relies to a large extent on computational tools. It has a relationship to Game Studies, especially with respect to the human-computer interaction, user interface, and cultural facets of computer games. These three areas are described in more detail below.
