B5591 - STRUMENTI PER LO STUDIO E LA VISUALIZZAZIONE DEI DATI DIGITALI

Academic Year 2025/2026

  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: Second cycle degree programme (LM) in Media, Public and Corporate Communication (cod. 5703)

Learning outcomes

The workshop aims to introduce students to the use of programming languages, software, and specific command packages for the collection and analysis of data and texts in digital format. Particular attention will be devoted to developing skills typical of data journalism, including activities such as web scraping, text mining, and the visualization of information, texts, and digital data.

Course contents

The workshop requires students to have some prior knowledge regarding the nature and use of digital data, particularly data generated by "digital traces."

These skills can be acquired by attending the course taught by the same instructor in the same semester (B5589 - ANALYSIS OF DIGITAL COMMUNICATION) or by studying the following two texts:

  • Salganik, M.J. (2020) Bit by Bit: La ricerca sociale nell'era digitale. Bologna: il Mulino.

  • Mayer-Schönberger, V. & Cukier, K. (2014) Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think. Eamon Dolan/Mariner Books.

Building on this foundational knowledge, the workshop will practically develop specific skills related to:

  • scraping data and textual materials from the web, videos, and digital databases

  • constructing and preparing data and/or text archives for analysis

  • analyzing digital texts using text mining techniques

  • graphically representing the results of analyses

Specific software and programming languages will be used for each of these operations (e.g., dedicated R and Python packages).

Readings/Bibliography

The materials needed for the workshop, as well as specific readings that may be useful for students, will be indicated and made available on the course's virtuale platform.

Teaching methods

Guided practical exercises using R, RStudio, and Python. Students will need a computer (with no specific technical requirements) to complete the exercises.

Assessment methods

A final in-class exercise involving the extraction of texts from a digital trace, their organization for analysis, and textual analysis.

The exercise will be fully comparable to the guided exercises carried out during the workshop.

Teaching tools

The course will use the virtual platform for materials and communications. Students are encouraged to register on the platform as soon as it becomes available

Office hours

See the website of Marco Albertini