Mensch und Maschine als Team. Exploratives Topic Modeling und manuelle Annotation in der qualitativen Sozialforschung

Abstract

In an experimental setting, the interplay of topic modeling and grounded theory annotation in the exploitation of large-scale collections of qualitative research data is approached via a combination of quantitative pre-structuring and qualitative in-depth analysis. This raises issues of epistemology, sense-making, characteristics, compatibility, and different dynamics of both methods. A mixed-methods approach suggests that topic modeling provides a proposition that can be interpreted by researchers for a first structuring of a qualitative analysis. Nevertheless, researchers give away agency through the use of topic modeling. The combination of perspectives and their ethnographic reflection can also meet the demand for evaluation in machine learning.

Keywords

• oral history
• qualitative methode
• digitale hermeneutik
• annotation
• empirische kulturwissenschaft
• topic modeling