The Digital Humanities Cycle: Doing Digital History Iteratively

DH Benelux, June 8-9, 2015, Antwerp

Jesper Verhoef & Melvin WeversTranslantis Project, Utrecht University

Digital Humanities Approaches to Reference Cultures: The Emergence of the United States in Dutch Public Discourse between 1890 - 1990 1

Digital History Cycle

● Heuristics: Searching

● Hermeneutics: Analyzing

● Tool criticism: Understanding how

a tool works

● Corpus faceting: Pre-processing

of data

● Source Criticism: Critical

evaluation of historical sources

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Question-Driven Use of Tools

● How was America represented in debates on portable radios?

● How has the geographic connotation of the cigarette shifted between 1920 and 1940? 3

Directed Searching

● Full-Text Searching

● N-Gram Analysis

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Full-text searching

Traditional research Full-text Search

Source: Bob Nicholson, ‘The digital turn. Exploring the methodological possibilities of digital newspaper archives’, Media History 19.1 (2013) 66-67.

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N-gram analysis

Source: KB N-gram viewer. http://kbkranten.politicalmashup.nl/#q/transistorradio|transistor radio|transistor-radio|portable radio|draagbare radio. Visited on May 30, 2015.

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Topic Modeling

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Topic Modeling

Prize

Theft

Amerika

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Topic Modeling - Advertisements 1924-1929

sigaret virginia whip chief ardath london goud cigarettes kwaliteit olympia kurk nummer rook beste gezondheid zoo zulk vooraan punten

sigaret sigaar pijp beter smakelijker wybert amersfoort virginia houbaer tabletten rooken oudste prijs magnums hollands nasmaak cent nemen noch

sigaret nieuwe onze tabakken vervaardigd doosje import vraagt rookt smaak betere cents sigaretten turksche fijne kwaliteit edelste uwe proef

sigaret club sigaretten gij army camel tabak cent sopla camels wereld kwaliteit prijs gemaakt virginia sigaren eerst rookt keel

sigaret adamas egyptische mildste tegenwoordig stuks coupon coupons mavrides fijnste sigaretten cts geschenken gratis ste naam fijn slechts omar

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Tool Criticism: NER Foreign Locations (top 8) Dutch Locations (top 8) American Locations (top 8)

United Kingdom / London (151 / 84) Rotterdam (496) American (70)

Germany / Berlin / Hamburg (146 / 81 / 22)

Amsterdam (177) New York (34)

France / Paris (139 / 154) Tilburg (107) Washington (11)

Russia (102) Groningen (94) United States (11)

The United States / America / New York (11 / 70 / 34)

Breda (64) Chicago (3)

Bruxelles / Antwerp ( 57 /46) Haarlem (48) Virginia (3)

Austria ( 40 / 21) Utrecht (43) North-America (3)

Turkey (39) Arnhem (35)

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Conclusion

● iterative: not one-size fits all

● use of contrast between tools

● tools are instruments

● beware / be aware of their

limitations

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Thanks

@melvinwevers@jesperverhoef

www.translantis.nl

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