King's College London

Dr Tobias Blanke from the Department of Digital Humanities at King's College London has been talking to the Guardian today about his research project, Our Data, Ourselves, and the future of big data.

Blanke told the Guardian: "There is a lot of potential for understanding history and society through the big data we leave behind. An often-quoted example is the George W. Bush Presidential Center holdings of 200 million White House emails of the second Bush administration, which are only just becoming available for access under the US Freedom of Information Act. It is here that big data can be useful to researchers in the humanities and social science, who can trace how emails appear around events and understand from their content the mindset of decision makers."

Blanke and Dr Mark Coté's Arts & Humanities Research Council-funded project aims to increase our understanding of the nature and role of the data that young people produce when they use social platforms and applications on their smartphones. The team have paired with members of Young Rewired State - and independent global network of under-18s who have taught themselves to code - to develop tools and applications to capture and visualise key components of the Big Social Data that the 14- to 18-year-old user generates. 

The Guardian article can be read at www.theguardian.com

More information on Our Data, Ourselves can be found at big-social-data.net