Digital Humanities: Ethical Implications and Interdisciplinary Challenges

Abstract

What is meant by Digital Humanities? This paper presents and discusses characterizations of Digital Humanities, with emphasis on methodological and ethical problems related to the use of Big Data in human sciences. There is still no consensus regarding the definition of Digital Humanities, but there is a general agreement that collaborative inter/multi/transdisciplinary practices are involved in the study of computational processing of massive amounts of data available in areas of human sciences. Studies concerning digital resources, electronic publishing, and digitized historical newspaper collections, among others, have played a prominent role in these areas. This paper addresses questions about the genuine interdisciplinary nature of research on Digital Humanities, and discusses ethical issues associated with Big Data analytics, from a complex systems perspective. Emphasis is given to implications (positive and negative) of the use of information and communication technology in studies of the dynamics of human autonomy. To conclude, we discuss possible upcoming challenges of the extensive use of Big Data technology for the development of Digital Humanities in the domain of human autonomy