Naslov
Big data insights into social macro trends (1800- 2000): A replication study

Autori
Roth, Steffen ; Schwede, Peter ; Valentinov, Vladislav ; Žažar, Krešimir ; Kaivo-oja, Jari

Izvornik
Technological forecasting and social change (0040-1625) 149 (2019); 119759, 8

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Radovi u časopisima, članak, znanstveni

Ključne riječi
Big data ; Social theory ; Social change ; Social macro trends ; Google ngrams

Sažetak
Seeking to advance a big data approach to social theory, Roth et al. (2017) applied the Google Ngram Viewer toexplore the way the evolution of the function systems of the modern society is reflected in the Google Bookscorpus. The authors produced a highly counterintuitivefinding that the modern Western societies cannot beadequately described as capitalist. In order to respond to the controversies raised by thisfinding, the presentarticle replicates Roth et al. (2017) study while using a superior plotting software that allows to control the riskthat keyword strength can be biased due to the neglect of keyword quantity. Covering the English-, French-, and German-language corpora, the present replication effort has confirmed the existence of distinct trends exhibitedby the individual function systems, such as secularization, the persistent dominance of the political system, andthe relatively lesser role of the economic system. These results are largely consistent with those of Roth et al. (2017) and thus lend credence to the authors’sceptical assessment of the validity of the capitalist semantics. The article concludes by pleading for the routinization of big data- driven checks of the modern social theories.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Sociologija

POVEZANOST RADA