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Open-Data, Open-Source, Open-Knowledge: Towards Open-Access Research in Media Studies

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Abstract

Considering knowledge as a public resource (Hess and Ostrom in Understanding Knowledge as a Commons: From Theory to Practice, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2007), this article discusses a possible application of an open-access methodology for accessing, visualizing, and understanding large corpora in media studies. It does so by presenting a case study based on the extraction of a sample database of television series from Wikidata. The article outlines the process adopted to make open-access data not only freely available, but also understandable and readable with the support of open-source tools. Relying entirely on online resources, the project presented here helps us frame the distinct traits of an open-access work-flow, where each step in the research can be retraced online, thus guaranteeing transparency and participatory research practices. Similarly, the chapter evaluates the challenges and limitations of an open-access environment for the study of media.

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  1. Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA

    Giulia Taurino

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  1. Giulia Taurino
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Correspondence to Giulia Taurino .

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  1. School of Arts and Creative Industries, Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh, UK

    Anne Schwan

  2. School of Arts and Creative Industries, Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh, UK

    Tara Thomson

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Taurino, G. (2022). Open-Data, Open-Source, Open-Knowledge: Towards Open-Access Research in Media Studies. In: Schwan, A., Thomson, T. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Digital and Public Humanities. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11886-9_4

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