Institutionalizing Big Data methods in social and political research

Ahonen, Pertti

doi:10.1177/2053951715591224

Cited by 12 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…Fligstein et al (2017) used Topic Modelling to detect differences in meanings used in communications by the Federal Open Market Committee. Topic Modelling was also used to confront meanings in the actual debate and meanings described by theory; for instance, Ahonen (2015) challenged existing theories on sources of legal tradition in different countries by developing an inductive classification system through this technique.…”

Section: Methods and Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Talking about EU: European identity and the Publication Office of the European Union

Pareschi

2020

pIJ

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In this paper we tackle the concept of European identity and the way in which it is communicated by the Publication Office of the European Union. We downloaded the publications of the Publication Office labelled with 'European Identity', and we analysed them through Topic Modelling, eliciting six topics that constitute those documents. We analysed these topics against the different dimensions of European Identity, as described by literature: the civic component of the European identity is partly represented by a topic dealing with the rule of law and National and European identities. The cultural dimension of the European identity characterises analysed documents to a wider extent, as three topics deal with common history, heritage, and culture. In particular, a topic connecting European identity with common cultural values and education is the more used in our sample of documents, and the one which is characterising more and more these documents over time. We argue that this trend signals a particular emphasis by the European Union in identifying European Identity with shared cultural values that can be taught.

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Section: Methods and Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Talking about EU: European identity and the Publication Office of the European Union

Pareschi

2020

pIJ

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“…This study applies Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling [1,6,7,24], which is intended for revealing latent configurations in texts. It is for the researcher to interpret these configurations semantically.…”

Section: Research Materials and Research Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transitory and Resilient Salient Issues in Party Manifestos, Finland, 1880s to 2010s

Ahonen

Koljonen

2018

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

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The performance of computational methods has been proven many times over. However, special efforts may be needed to ensure access to the research results achieved by means of these methods within specialized social science disciplines. This study joins previous efforts towards the mainstreaming of a specific computational method in the political science field of salience research. Rather than joining previous studies on the influence of the salience of issues to parties upon their electoral results or their propensity to form or join governments, this study represents the part of salience research that examines salience and its changes in their own right. Adapting ideas of digital historical humanities given the long study period, this study inserts salience theory within the frames of critical junctures theory to examine issues discontinuity, and path dependence theory to account for issue resilience. Using Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic modeling with 734 Finnish party manifestos from the 1880s to the 2010s as the research material, testing two hypotheses gave the following results. First, although many issues in the manifestos have been transitory, there have also been issues with resilience over critical junctures. Second, although there are resilient issues whose meanings have stayed the same by and large during longer periods, the meanings of some other resilient issues have pronouncedly changed, either suddenly at critical junctures or gradually during periods of path dependence. The implications for future studies are also discussed.

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“…On the downside, however, such growth took a toll on the research process, undermining n-sensitive statistical approaches (Lee and Martin, 2015 ). The data deluge thus delivered a flood of false positives and called for big methods (Williamson, 2014 ; Ahonen, 2015 ). Most of the traditional statistical methods were designed to deal with small samples collected through survey methods.…”

Section: A (R)evolving Paradigmmentioning

confidence: 99%

Big Data and the Little Big Bang: An Epistemological (R)evolution

Balazka

Rodighiero

2020

Front. Big Data

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Starting from an analysis of frequently employed definitions of big data, it will be argued that, to overcome the intrinsic weaknesses of big data, it is more appropriate to define the object in relational terms. The excessive emphasis on volume and technological aspects of big data, derived from their current definitions, combined with neglected epistemological issues gave birth to an objectivistic rhetoric surrounding big data as implicitly neutral, omni-comprehensive, and theory-free. This rhetoric contradicts the empirical reality that embraces big data: (1) data collection is not neutral nor objective; (2) exhaustivity is a mathematical limit; and (3) interpretation and knowledge production remain both theoretically informed and subjective. Addressing these issues, big data will be interpreted as a methodological revolution carried over by evolutionary processes in technology and epistemology. By distinguishing between forms of nominal and actual access, we claim that big data promoted a new digital divide changing stakeholders, gatekeepers, and the basic rules of knowledge discovery by radically shaping the power dynamics involved in the processes of production and analysis of data.

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Institutionalizing Big Data methods in social and political research

Cited by 12 publications

References 58 publications

Talking about EU: European identity and the Publication Office of the European Union

Talking about EU: European identity and the Publication Office of the European Union

Transitory and Resilient Salient Issues in Party Manifestos, Finland, 1880s to 2010s

Big Data and the Little Big Bang: An Epistemological (R)evolution

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