Doha: In an effort to advance the understanding of how large, complex data can be used by media organisations and grasped by their audiences, Northwestern University in Qatar announced yesterday an open symposium, to be held on November 19 under the theme “Big Data, Smart Media? Connecting Content, Audience and Information.”
The symposium will apply the booming phenomenon of “big data” to the understanding of media management, as well as to content production and consumption. The Economist’s data editor and former Wall Street Journal technology editor, Kenneth Cukier, will open the session with insights from his recent book Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think.
The day’s panels feature a range of leading scholars, professionals and other global experts in Big Data from renowned institutions including, University of Oxford Reuters Institute, Columbia University and Al Jazeera Media Network.
‘Big Data’ is the term for a collection of data sets so large and complex that it becomes difficult to process using traditional data processing applications. Accurate analysis of Big Data and its impact on media has come under the spotlight recently, following the series of news reports on the National Security Agency’s surveillance programmes.
According to Everette E Dennis, Dean and CEO of NU-Q, the increasing availability of mass information made possible by the Internet and social media has generated an urgency to develop tools for turning huge amounts of data into useful knowledge. “Big Data is the next frontier in analyzing the ways in which society shapes and consumes media,” said Dennis. “The exceptional technologies and manpower required to process such large quantities of data have created a need within the media industry to further our understanding of Big Data, in terms of what content we produce, how we produce it, and how we can best deliver it to our audiences. It is also a crucial subject for journalists, as some of the biggest stories of our day, such as national security and many global trends, are a direct result of the emergence of Big Data. The outcomes of the conference will result in a report that will provide a conceptual roadmap to Big Data issues, trends and implications for those pursuing careers in media as well as for the broader industry, the Dean added.
The Peninsula
