A virada computacional nas pesquisas em Comunicação

Abstract

This article makes an exploratory effort to map the main epistemological and methodological implications of recent technological developments for Communication research. They are: the popularization of the personal computer, the Internet and the emergence of the Web 2.0 tools. From this mapping, we draw a typology by identifying trends among contemporary studies that make use of computational techniques of data collection and analysis, seeking to indicate challenges and ways to avoid a possible technicism of such methods. Our work highlights critiques that have arisen among researchers from the digital humanities who problematize research values and practices reinforced by the quantitative fetish and dazzle with the era of abundant data that we live in. One of our main arguments is that hybrid methodologies are one of the best solutions to humanly benefit from the computational turn in our field.