The latest discipline to benefit from big data analysis is the emerging field of digital humanities. Digital humanities bring artificial intelligence (AI) and text analytics to traditional arts and humanities scholarship. An interesting article in The Irish Times revealed how AI and text analytics approaches were applied to humanities to probe texts running to thousands of pages.
Academics, from Arts and STEM at the UCD, used AI and text analytics to get new insights from the 2009 Ryan report on institutional child abuse. Text analytics and AI techniques have enabled the academics to sift forensically through the material that runs to 2,600 pages. This helped them establish connections that had remained invisible during normal reading of the texts. For example, using AI and text analytics techniques, the academics were able to track and tag every interaction among all of those involved. Individually, these interactions looked isolated and innocuous. However, when they compiled all interactions together, it became clear that there had been profound and far-reaching awareness of the abuse.
By bringing AI and text analytics to bear on the Ryan report, the academics were able to visualize the active networks behind the industrial schools, where the purported institutional child abuse took place. In addition, a close textual analysis gave new insights into the experience of abuse. For example, using AI and text analytics techniques, the academics were able to track and tag every interaction among all of those involved. Individually, these interactions looked isolated and innocuous. However, when they compiled all interactions together, it became clear that there had been profound and far-reaching awareness of the abuse. Furthermore, the project created a dynamic search function. This enabled people to go into specific details of the report and identify those involved albeit through pseudonyms.
Click here to read how academics turned the Ryan report into an easily searchable database that sheds new light.
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