Interpreting Big Data: Tracing Meaning-Making Through 20 Years of White Power Discussions

The study at hand is a large project examining how far-right extremists mobilize on digital media, viewing this as a simultaneous construction of identity and worldview. This is studied through a large dataset with 20 years of discussions from the white power forum Stormfront. As this research aim fits poorly within both the traditional qualitative and quantitative paradigms, it raises important methodological questions: How do we take a qualitative approach to Big Data? How do we combine interpretation with computational methods? Using the Stormfront study as a case, we here present a methodological framework for integrating human interpretation as part of a process of automated computational analysis. This illustrates how digital data and methods can be used to constructively challenge the traditional boundaries between quantitative and qualitative approaches, outlines how abductive inference can be used in computational research, and provides a concrete methodological approach for interpreting Big Data.