Fourth Assignment

Choose one of the options below and write an essay in response. Your essay should be at least three and a half pages in length and should not exceed six pages. Use double-space lineation, a 12-point serif font, and one-inch margins on all sides. Your writing is expected to be error-free and up to university standards.

Essay should be argumentative essays: there should be one main thesis that the essay attempts to support/prove. The thesis represents your own original insight into the topic.

The assignment is due on February 11th. Consult the course outline for information about late assignments.

Option 1: Social Computing Analysis

Use the web application Cyber Chirps to search through recent tweets (from Twitter). Choose a word, words, or a phrase and search through recent tweets that contain the word(s)/phrase you have chosen. The web site will return the one hundred or so most recent tweets that match your search. Retrieve the search results for the same word(s)/phrase for at least four different times/days: the search results you analyze should have at least 24 hours separating the first and last sets. Write an essay that analyzes the results.

The Cyber Chirps web site will allow you to save the search results that you want to save. You can then retrieve the results at a later date, to enable comparison between result sets. The web site will list the top twenty or so most frequent words that occur in each of the results sets. Note that some words are not counted for the list of the most frequent words. Your essay must refer to the results by file identification number. You are welcome to use more advanced text analysis techniques on your results (as individual sets or altogether).

Your essay should attempt to come to an understanding of the types of Tweets being written about or containing your word(s)/phrase. How do the most frequent words relate to the search term? How do these words change over time? Can you get a sense of the general attitude towards the search term and/or how the search term is being used given the result sets? How is this social medium being used to communicate information about the search term?

You are welcome to use any search term for this assignment. You will probably want to choose a search term that will be included in many tweets on any given day. You are welcome to use names of people and/or products. You are welcome to search for “adult,” vulgar, and/or swear words. If you choose a particular phrase (such as, “don't tell my wife” or “don't tell my boss” or “are driving me crazy”), be sure to include quotation marks around the phrase.

Option 2: Social Profiling: The Numerati

Write a detailed response to The Numerati. Examine the human implications of two or more of the types of profiling discussed in the book. What might the author be ignoring, especially when considering how social profiling might alter the definition of what it means to be a human and/or change society radically? More importantly, examine how the author presents his argument. To what extent does he endorse the type of social profiling he is presenting? How does he portray humans, computers, and the Numerati in his writing?

Option 3: Painting colour analysis

Use the web application Painting colour analysis to examine the use of colours in paintings. You will need to compare the use of greys and colours in at least five different painting, though you might want to treat as many as eight to twelve. Can you qualify the styles of the paintings using this tool? What interesting features are being revealed by the tool? Can you arrive at different types of classifications for the paintings using the tool? (Do the classifications follow a painter’s style, or a period, or a nationality?)

If you would like to include more paintings with the tool, please feel free to email the instructor with the following details for each painting: the artist’s name, the painting’s title, the painting’s year (if known), and a URL that points to a good quality image of the painting. (Note that the image should be at least 500 by 500 pixels and should probably not be larger than 4000 by 4000 pixels.)

Your report should treat in detail your observations and any conclusions you can arrive at using the tool. You should also discuss the usefulness and limitations of the tool for the advanced study of paintings.

Option 4: Text visualization

Examine the following two text visualization tools:
      • A Text Explorer
      • TextArc
Write an essay that compares the functionality and usefulness of the two text visualization tools. What can these tools reveal about texts through visualization? What can they not reveal? How useful are these for the study of texts (for literary studies, history studies, etc.)? What constitutes their visual appeal?