Life and death of Big Data. The semiotic contribution from data mining to interpretation

Abstract

To focus on the entire life-cycle of Big Data implies a breaking down of aspects relating to texts, narrative mechanisms, risks linked to omission and manipulation. Behind the progressive emergence of sense there is a process of interpretation, translation, disambiguation of texts. The issue of Big Data is not only an issue of increasing complexity of available texts (of which Big Data constitutes just one aspect), but it is also the reflection of cultural change that requires the extension of the analytical approach to the context in which data are created and used. Who uses Big Data? The semiotic contribution, from data mining to the interpretation, measures its validity in the configuration of the systemic analysis: from the breaking down of the text in its basic recurrent elements to the relationship and comparison with other texts in the specific context in which they circulate and the situations in which they are used and which influence their signification.