Culturomics

Culturomics is a form of computational lexicology that studies human behavior and cultural trends through the quantitative analysis of digitized texts.^[1][2] Researchers data mine large digital archives to investigate cultural phenomena reflected in language and word usage.^[3] The term is an American neologism first described in a 2010 Science article called Quantitative Analysis of Culture Using Millions of Digitized Books, co-authored by Harvard researchers Jean-Baptiste Michel and Erez Lieberman Aiden.^[4] Michel and Aiden helped create the Google Labs project Google Ngram Viewer which uses n-gram's to analyze the Google Book digital library for cultural patterns in language use over time. In another study called Culturnomics 2.0, Kalev H. Leetaru examined news archives including print and broadcast media (television and radio transcripts) for words that imparted tone or "mood" as well as geographic data.^[5][6] The research was able to retroactively predict the 2011 Arab Spring and successfully estimate the final location of Osama Bin Laden to within 124 miles.^[5][6]

Further reading

• Michel, Jean-Baptiste; Liberman Aiden, Erez (16 December 2010). "Quantitative Analysis of Culture Using Millions of Digitized Books". Science. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2010/12/15/science.1199644. 
• Leetaru, Kalev H. (5 September 2011). "Culturnomics 2.0: Forecasting Large-Scale Human Behavior Using Global News Media Tone In Time And Space". First Monday 16 (9). http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3663/3040. 
• Bohannon, John (14 January 2011). "Google Books, Wikipedia, and the Future of Culturomics". Science 331 (6014): 135. 
• Schwartz, Tim (1 April 2011). "Culturomics: Periodicals Gauge Culture's Pulse". Science 332 (6025): 35–36. 
• Morse-Gagne, Elise E. (1 April 2011). "Culturomics: Statistical Traps Muddy the Data". Science 332 (6025): 35. 

References

1. ^ Cohen, Patricia (16 December 2010). "In 500 Billion Words, New Window on Culture". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/17/books/17words.html. 
2. ^ Hayes, Brian (May–June 2011). "Bit Lit". American Scientist 99 (3): 190. doi:10.1511/2011.90.190. http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.12418,y.2011,no.3,content.true,page.1,css.print/issue.aspx. 
3. ^ Letcher, David W. (April 6, 2011). "Cultoromics: A New Way to See Temporal Changes in the Prevalence of Words and Phrases". American Institute of Higher Education 6th International Conference Proceedings 4 (1): 228. http://www.amhighed.com/documents/charleston2011/AIHE2011_Proceedings.pdf#page=228. 
4. ^ Michel, Jean-Baptiste; Liberman Aiden, Erez (16 December 2010). "Quantitative Analysis of Culture Using Millions of Digitized Books". Science. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2010/12/15/science.1199644. 
5. ^ ^{a b} Leetaru, Kalev H. (5 September 2011). "Culturnomics 2.0: Forecasting Large-Scale Human Behavior Using Global News Media Tone In Time And Space". First Monday 16 (9). http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3663/3040. 
6. ^ ^{a b} Quick, Darren (7 September 2011). "Culturomics research uses quarter-century of media coverage to forecast human behavior". Gizmag.com. http://www.gizmag.com/culturomics-using-media-coverage/19749/. Retrieved 9 September 2011. 

External links

• Culturomics.org, website by The Cultural Observatory at Harvard directed by Erez Lieberman Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel