JOURNAL ARTICLE

Web archive analytics: Blind spots and silences in distant readings of the archived web.

  • Published In: Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, 2023, v. 38, n. 3. P. 1033 1 of 3

  • Database: Academic Search Ultimate 2 of 3

  • Authored By: Donig, Simon; Eckl, Markus; Gassner, Sebastian; Rehbein, Malte 3 of 3

Abstract

This article focuses on the epistemological and methodological challenges of web archive analytics, emphasizing the concepts of "blind spots" (features of the live web omitted during archiving) and "silences" (latent archive content requiring specific methods to reveal). It proposes a generalized workflow for computational analysis of web archives, introducing warc2corpus (w2c), a tool for granular extraction of structured textual data including temporal metadata, and demonstrates the use of structural topic modelling (STM) for distant reading to identify and analyze discourse patterns over time. An exemplary case study analyzing the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung's coverage of the 2019 European Parliament Election illustrates how these methods address issues of scale and temporality while acknowledging limitations related to data extraction, methodological biases, and the need for contextual interpretation. The article concludes by highlighting the importance of methodological reflection and documentation to mitigate epistemological challenges inherent in digital archival research.

Additional Information

  • Source:Digital Scholarship in the Humanities. 2023/09, Vol. 38, Issue 3, p1033
  • Document Type:Article
  • Subject Area:Social Sciences and Humanities
  • Publication Date:2023
  • ISSN:2055-768X
  • DOI:10.1093/llc/fqad014
  • Accession Number:171389424
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