Small Data and Big Data - Web Archives and Research in the Humanities

Explore the intersection of small and big data in web archives and their impact on humanities research in this 28-minute talk by Professor Jane Winters at the Alan Turing Institute. Delve into the challenges and opportunities presented by large-scale text data for studying social and cultural phenomena. Learn about various web archives, including the UK web domain crawl and government web archive, and examine issues such as temporal inconsistencies and duplication. Discover how digital palimpsests and evolving language trends are captured in web archives, and investigate case studies on topics like steampunk, the London bombings, and citizen journalism. Gain insights into the potential of web archives for interdisciplinary research and the importance of bridging methodologies between NLP/ML and humanities disciplines.

Introduction
Finding web archives
UK web domain crawl
UK government web archive
University of Plymouth
The web archive
The British Library Homepage
Temporal inconsistencies
Duplication
The live web
The web at large
The UK web archive
Digital palimpsest
A clear imperative
Word of the year 2004
Word of the year 2008
Steampunk
London bombings
Citizen journalism
The Archos
Fan related material
News coverage
The Archers
Conclusion