Understanding Digital Humanities (david M. Berry) / quote 13 of 16
Quantitative vs qualitative approach in dh
To return to our opening hypothesis then, the essays in this collection raise the question of what the digital humanities actually is. We begin to see the emergence of a division between digital humanities as a set of qualitative tools or methods, and the digital humanities as a newly emerging field influenced by computation as a way of accessing, interpreting, and reporting the world itself. The first distinctive wave uses quantitative data production and analysis, while the second wave is identified as a new field within the humanities that utilises digital tools to address existing concerns in the humanities. In doing so, this second wave reveals new analytic techniques and ways of exploring problems that the humanities tackle and seek answers for.