Big Data, new epistemologies and paradigm shifts
Rob Kitchin
The author acknowledges that big data provides many opportunities for social scientists and humanities scholars, especially a large amount of very rich social, cultural, economic, political and historical data. At the same time, the author also pointed out that we need more targeted research to analyze and understand these data, as well as establish a post-positivist form of computational social science epistemological method. Although the data field is changing rapidly, we urgently need a broader critical reflection on the epistemological implications of big data and data analysis, and this task has just begun.