JH – Data Cultures

Posted on December 10, 2018 by JH

What I Mean When I Say Domain Literacy Reflection

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This article about domain literacy explains the importance of knowledge about domains, and where we are putting our work and personal information. As we move further into the age of internet and technology, the author wants to stress the importance of knowing simple domain literacy. The author lists terms/topics for which every person who uses the internet should know about. For example, everyone should know what a domain is, how it works, and who can control it. Many individuals as well as companies own their own domains and can pull information from its users. For protection and privacy purposes, it is imperative that users know what information can be taken. The author states, “You don’t walk into shady establishments in the physical world, and hand over your private information to people you don’t know or trust–we just need to help make people more of aware of the details of doing this in the digital, as well as our physical worlds.” The purpose of the article is to explain the importance of protecting our own information on the web.

This is a very important topic that everyone who uses the internet should become familiar with, especially as we move farther in the world of technology.

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Posted on December 10, 2018 by JH

Sentiment Analysis and Subjectivity Reflection

Bing Liu’s article, Sentiment Analysis and Subjectivity, explains the history behind opinionated text and how it is researched today. He opens his article by defining textual information into two mains types: facts and opinions. Facts are objective, and opinions are subjective expressions that often describe people’s sentiments or feelings towards an event. Liu explains that throughout history, most of the textual information people have researched have been fact based. Why? Because before the internet, there were few places to publish opinionated text. Before the internet, opinions were often made to friends, family, etc, and were not published. Today, opinions flood the internet. With websites like Amazon and Ebay where consumers can comment on products, and applications like Instagram and Facebook where users can comment on posts, opinions are constantly being made. This is where sentiment analysis is incredibly effective. Sentiment Analysis takes all the words in a text, determines if the words have a positive or negative sentiment, then returns a “sentiment score” allowing the user of the program to determine whether the overall text is positive or negative.

Sentiment Analysis is not a full-proof way to tell whether a text is positive or negative as it is susceptible to errors, but in many cases, it is very effective in taking large bodies of information and determining whether it is positive or negative. One of my classmates made an interesting statement about how the computer can determine whether something is positive or negative. BM states, “computer will never understand the emotional values and ever-changing expressions of human beings.” How is it that a computer can determine whether something is positive or negative without emotional values or feelings? Overall, sentiment analysis is an incredibly fascinating topic and has the opportunity to be a very effective strategy for analyzing data in the future.

Posted on December 4, 2018 by JH

Social Media Data Reflection

In this blog post, we are informed about the pros and cons of social media data. This data is quite controversial because it can be very useful at times, but can also affect people’s privacy. The article opens with the pros of social media data. Projects and data analysis that used to take almost 50 years can now be compiled in less than one year with less people working and a greater sample size. Similarly, the data can be more accurate because people do not know they are in an experiment. Often times, people tend to tell researchers what they want to hear, or change their behavior because they are being observed. Social Media data eliminates those biases.

On the other hand, social media and the data taken from it can be harmful or inaccurate. Firstly, you must be mindful of the users privacy and the platform’s agreements when taking data. Many people are not comfortable with their social media’s being taken for data, and companies should respect that. Privacy is not the only problem with social media data. Often times, it is hard to properly represent a group of people using social media. The article states, “Social Media users tend to be WEIRD: wealthy, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic societies. This group is already over-represented in social science and psychology research studies, which may be subtly skewing our models of human behavior.” Much of the data taken from social media can be skewed because of who is using it, and the possibility of bots and other accounts generated by computers.

Overall, the use of social media data is incredibly interesting, and something that should be heavily considered. It has many positive impacts but can also have many negative impacts. My classmate, PE, explores a positive impact of social media in a reflection. “The relationships between people, the interconnections between groups and the overarching figures allow historians to learn who the key players of history are just like today.” Today, we can compile information and determine connections between people through social media, as well as find information about our past.

This idea of social media data is extremely topical as we proceed into the era of advanced technology.

Posted on November 13, 2018 by JH

Counter Mapping Reflection

Jim Enote’s Counter Mapping was an incredibly thought provoking video that explained the different ways to think about maps. Enote strongly believes that maps took more land from native people than physical altercations. Often times, we think about maps like Google Maps that show the world from an aerial view. In his video, Enote challenges that perception through maps that “evoke a sense of place” and maps that prioritize “storytelling and shared knowledge over plots and boundaries.” By creating maps that include cultural and ancestral tokens, Enote aims to create a sense of community for the people who read them. In doing so, he hopes to reclaim his people’s region and spark a renewed sense of culture and community.

Posted on November 6, 2018 by JH

200 Countries, 200 years, 4 minutes Reflection

Hans Roslings’ “200 countries, 200 years, 4 minutes” video was incredibly fascinating. Roslings took thousands of pieces of data and graphed 200 countries based on their life expectancy and income per person. To begin, he showed what the graph looked like in the early 1800’s. Almost all the countries were generally in similar areas, but as he changed the time and countries went through depressions, wars, and genocides, they began to grow apart. Some countries became better off and others fell. Finally, he played the simulation all the way through to his most current data. In the long run, the countries on the map started to converge higher on the graph (meaning higher life expectancy and higher income per person). This simulation very intriguing to watch because it showed how countries would rise and fall based on wars, depressions, and other hardships. Similarly, Roslings was effective with his presentation of data because it was interesting to watch and not too long. Overall, I think this is an example of a good way to present large amounts of data to an audience, and I really enjoyed watching this video. Similar to one of my classmate who wrote about this video, I agree that the graph is worth one thousand words. Seeing the countries move around the graph is incredibly interesting, and would be hard to replicate without the use of this graph.

Posted on October 30, 2018 by JH

“A Report Has Come Here” Reflection

The article, “A Report has Come Here,” not only explores the ways in which data can be missed, but also how data can be retrieved using digital tools. Through the use of a historical character, James Hemings, a slave of Thomas Jefferson, the author shows how we can use digital tools to gain knowledge about someone or something that is absent in the archival record. James Hemings was close to Thomas Jefferson, but when searching his name in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, no results surface. This is because Jefferson never wrote to Hemings due to his slave title. Because of this, James Hemings could have easily been forgotten in history, but thanks to various digital techniques, information regarding Hemings could be uncovered. Reading about this one recovery of historical information makes me think about the millions of other people in history who have yet to be discovered and studied. Thousands of women and people of color has been ignored throughout history, and this development of digital tools brings the opportunity for them to be re-discovered. Similar to one of my classmates who also wrote about this article, I was intrigued by the idea that a lack of information on a person does not mean that story must remain unknown. As we become more and more developed in the digital age, we will be able to discover information that we once thought was lost.

Posted on October 11, 2018 by JH

Effects of Low Pay and Unemployment on Psychological Health Reflection

In the article, “The Effects of Low Pay and Unemployment on well being: a logistic regression approach,” the author explores the correlation between unemployment and mental distress. Through his data, he finds that people who are unemployed have a greater chance of developing depression, anxiety, and low self esteem. He explains that even a low paying job can increase someone’s general happiness. The author took his data from almost 8000 different individuals between 16 and 91 through a survey with 6 different questions regarding how the individual was feeling about life. The author then correlated the results with unemployment using a logistic regression approach. However, I was confused as to how he determined how many of the individuals from the data were unemployed. I found this part of the article unclear. Anyhow, after trusting his results, he found that unemployed individuals have a higher chance of having psychological issues. In my opinion, his argument was not incredibly persuading. I thought it was pretty intuitive that unemployment is correlated with low self esteem, but it was not his data or argument that persuaded me. I found the article quite interesting, but did not change my stance on the subject in any way.

Sadly, I am not sure how to find everyone else’s blog posts, so I am not sure how to respond to them! I will ask in class!

Posted on October 4, 2018 by JH

Differences Do Not Matter Writing Reflection

Jackson Hayes

DCS104

Professor Shrout

October 4, 2018

Differences Do Not Matter Writing

Michael E. Martell’s Differences Do Not Matter: Exploring the Wage Gap article intrigued me through his argument and his ways of collecting data. Martell persuades his audience by explaining his process of how he collected his data. He compiled all previous data surrounding his topic into a “new and improved” data set. In his article, he explains the the labor discrimination and pay gap between gay and heterosexual men. Through the use of tables, Martell is able to clearly portray the unjust statistics behind being a gay man in the workforce. I was also intrigued by the way data can easily vary based on different variables. For example, Martell explains that some of his data might not even be completely accurate because of the the low labor force of same-sex behaving men in the first place. Similarly, Martell explains how he classifies someone as “same-sex behaving” can drastically change his results. For example, if he were to change one of his four classifications, his data could have held entirely different results. Overall, I found this article very informative not only about the pay gap between same-sex behaving men versus heterosexual men, but also how classifications and lack of data representation can affect the results of our data.

Posted on October 4, 2018 by JH

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