There has been significant critique of both distant reading and distant viewing methodologies. The main lines of criticism can be grouped into several key areas:
Methodological Critiques:
- Questions about data quality and representativeness - critics point out that the corpus selection often reflects existing canonical biases or is limited by what has been digitized
- Concerns about the “black box” nature of computational tools and algorithms used in analysis
- Issues with treating cultural artifacts as pure data points, potentially stripping them of their historical and social context
- Problems with quantification of qualitative aspects of cultural works
Theoretical Critiques:
- Argument that these methods promote a positivist approach to humanities, inappropriately applying natural science methods to cultural analysis
- Concern that the focus on patterns and trends can lead to reductive or deterministic interpretations
- Criticism that these approaches privilege certain types of questions and knowledge while marginalizing others
Practical and Political Critiques:
- Worry about the “digital divide” in humanities scholarship, as these methods require technical expertise and computational resources not equally available
- Concern about the corporatization of humanities research through dependence on expensive software and infrastructure
- Questions about the environmental impact of computational analysis requiring significant computing power
Notable critics include:
- Barbara Herrnstein Smith, who questioned the epistemological assumptions underlying computational approaches to literature
- Stanley Fish, who argued that quantitative methods cannot capture the essential interpretive nature of humanities scholarship
- Katherine Bode, who while not entirely critical, has called for more rigorous attention to how digital corpora are constructed and what they represent
Defense and Evolution: Practitioners like Moretti and others have responded to these critiques by:
- Advocating for combining distant and close reading methods rather than replacing one with the other
- Developing more sophisticated ways to incorporate historical and cultural context
- Working to make their methods more transparent and accessible
- Emphasizing that these approaches are complementary to rather than replacements for traditional humanities methods
The debate has led to more nuanced approaches that try to balance computational analysis with traditional humanities methods and critical theory. This has resulted in what some call “middle-distance reading” or hybrid approaches that combine quantitative and qualitative methods. The ongoing critique has been productive in helping refine these methodologies and better understand their appropriate uses and limitations.