ABOUT
WHAT IS DIGITAL HUMANITIES
Throughout the ten weeks of this class, the meaning of digital humanities has constantly evolved for us as we continued to acquire information about its uses and implications and made more progress on our project. We believe that digital humanities encompasses a field in which the text-heavy disciplines of the humanities is enhanced using technological tools and visualizations.
With digital humanities, data gathered from humanities-based studies is transformed using data visualizations, maps, timelines, and other digital tools and used to complement or build a narrative. The design and execution of a digital humanities project is crucial to the strength of its argument. Digital humanities offers us avenues to explore and interact with data in ways that unlock new perspectives on pre-existing ideas.
HOW IT WAS MADE
We began the journey of creating this project by first choosing our desired area of interest from a list of datasets provided by Professor Garcia. From there, we discussed how to narrow down our dataset; as the original spreadsheet we were working with had over 507,000 entries of the businesses in Los Angeles, we needed to trim the data we were working with down to something more wieldy. Eventually, we decided to focus explicitly on businesses in Koreatown, and narrowed our focus further by electing to focus on restaurants in Koreatown. We decided on this focus on after forming our hypothesis on what we believed the prevalent business type and growth would be in the neighborhood.
From there, we had every member of the group gather multiple sources on relevant literature in Koreatown. Every member read their sources and presented summarized versions of the articles to the other team members, and from there we narrowed down our sources to literature that we believed was relevant to our investigation. The common themes that we found in the sources were immigration, culture and entrepreneurship. Additionally, we also sourced information through multiple interviews with different restaurant owners in Koreatown.
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The structure of our website and the way that we present our findings mirrors the way that we narrowed the scope of our project. We thought this would be the most effective way to present our findings as it would allow people to interact with our data in a similar way to how our project evolved over the quarter. We sought to apply Bill Ferster’s “ASSERT” method from the Otty/Thomson reading to every visualization we created for the project. For example, here is how we applied it to the creation of our timeline:
Ask a question: How did restaurants develop over time in Koreatown?
Search for information: Sourced information across multiple academic repositories (JSTOR, ProQuest, etc) to find information on the development of Koreatown.
Structure the information: We organized the information based on how relevant we believed an entry was to the development of Koreatown and in what order the events occured.
Envision the answer: We evaluated how the events we chose could construct a narrative for the development for restaurants in Koreatown.
Represent the visualization: We created the timeline in a manner that was aesthetically pleasing.
Tell a story: the timeline entries construct a narrative for the development of Koreatoover the last 50 years.
WHO WE ARE
We are a team of 6 digital humanists all pursuing various degrees at the University of California, Los Angeles. Collectively, our team thrived in learning new concepts, providing different skill sets, and assuming less defined roles ad hoc. The following members all contributed to the making of this project:
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Though these roles were selected prior to the start of our project to best suit our capabilities, the responsibilities for each member became more fluid as the project progressed, allowing each of us to expand our skillset.
Vivian Chen,
Economics major -
Class of 2019
As the content specialist, Vivian helped craft the site’s main narrative and ensure that the data visualizations, maps, timelines, and interviews intertwined coherently with the written content. She also oversaw the formation of section headers and captions to create and enhance the flow of the site.
Riley Cooke,
Geography/Environmental Studies major -
Class of 2019
As the mapping specialist, Riley focused on situating the project in a geographic context. Using QGIS and ArcGIS software as mapping tools, Riley created the heatmap depicting business establishments over time and created a simple tour-style visualization of his visit to area for additional context. He also was in charge of the text analysis of the two interviews conducted using Voyant tools.
Peter Frederick,
History major -
Class of 2019
As the data specialist, Peter helped to narrow our dataset from over 507,000 entries down to 429 entries. Peter came into the project with strong technical skills in both Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel and has been integral to the development of our project.
Paola Gonzalez,
Sociology major -
Class of 2020
As the web specialist, Paola oversaw the structure and design of the webpage in order to best present the research outcomes in a well organized and appealing manner to the audience. She also contributed to the overall development of the research.
Matt Huang,
Business Economics major -
Class of 2019
As the data visualization specialist, Matt helped decide on the narrative direction of the project, and determine the types of visualization that would be used to augment our story. He also contributed to the aesthetic design of the website, as well as primary research.
Tina Nguyen,
Communications/Sociology major - ​
Class of 2020
As the project manager, Tina oversaw and enforced the timeline of the project as well as mediated communication among team members. She also contributed to the overall framework and construction of the site, ensuring that each subject-matter expert received the extra assistance they needed.
SPECIAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This project would not be possible without the instruction of Professor Ashley Sanders Garcia, head of the Digital Humanities department at UCLA. A special thank you to Dustin O'Hara for his guidance throughout this process.