Distant viewing: analyzing large visual corpora ............................................................................................................................................................ Taylor Arnold Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Richmond, Richmond, VA, USA Lauren Tilton Department of Rhetoric and Communication Studies, University of Richmond, Richmond, VA, USA ....................................................................................................................................... Abstract In this article we establish a methodological and theoretical framework for the study of large collections of visual materials. Our framework, distant viewing, is distinguished from other approaches by making explicit the interpretive nature of extracting semantic metadata from images. In other words, one must ‘view’ visual materials before studying them. We illustrate the need for the interpretive process of viewing by simultaneously drawing on theories of visual semiotics, photography, and computer vision. Two illustrative applications of the distant viewing frame- work to our own research are draw upon to explicate the potential and breadth of the approach. A study of television series shows how facial detection is used to compare the role of actors within the narrative arcs across two competing series. An analysis of the Farm Security Administration–Office of War Information corpus of documentary photography is used to establish how photographic style compared and differed amongst those photographers involved with the collection. We then aim to show how our framework engages with current methodological and theoretical conversations occurring within the digital humanities. ................................................................................................................................................................................. 1 Introduction Digital humanities’ (DH) focus on text and related methodologies such as distant reading and macroana- lysis has produced exciting interventions (Jockers, 2013; Underwood, 2017). Yet, what about that which we see and hear? Cultural forms predicated on visuality and sound have long shaped our daily experiences. Disciplines such as art history, film studies, media stu- dies, and music continue to show how visual and aural objects reflect and shape cultural values. These discip- lines have been joined by sound studies and visual culture studies, which have also ardently argued for the centrality of audio (Attali, 1977; Schafer, 1993; Sterne, 2003) and visual (Jay, 1993; Mitchell, 1994; Mirzoeff, 1998) forms to our mediated lives. Building on decades of scholarship from across these fields, there is now a serious call to take sound culture, visual culture, and moving images as objects of study in DH (Clement, 2012; Posner, 2013; Acland and Hoyt, 2016; Manovich, 2016). As a part of this chorus, we argue that DH should consider, what we call, distant viewing—a methodo- logical and theoretical framework for studying large collections of visual material. Distant viewing is dis- tinguished from other approaches by making Correspondence: Taylor Arnold, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, 221 Richmond Way, Richmond, VA, 23173, USA. E-mail: tarnold2@richmond.edu Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, Vol. 0, No. 0, 2019. ß The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of EADH. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com 1 doi:10.1093/digitalsh/fqz013 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/dsh/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/digitalsh/fqz013/5382183 by guest on 18 March 2019