Abstract
Franco Moretti's “distant reading” has had a significant impact on Western scholarship. While scholars mainly categorize it as part of the research in digital humanities, few have noted the importance of distant reading as a research method in itself. This article proposes the concept of "reading media" as an approach to understanding the evolution of distant reading as a method. "Reading media" is a kind of information feedback apparatus capable of changing readers’ perception of a text. The evolution of the distant reading method indicates that different reading media have transformed the researchers’ cognitive ability of texts; that is, other people's research transforms the texts into expert opinions, quantitative analysis transforms texts into data, and modeling transforms data into literary models based on quantification. A series of cognitive changes have brought about changes in research methods. The distant reading approach in particular has evolved to integrate multidisciplinary thinking and, therefore, has the potential to become a new paradigm for liberal arts research.
Keywords
distant reading, reading media, quantitative analysis, modeling, new liberal arts
First Page
104
Last Page
112
Recommended Citation
Zheng, Nan. 2022. "Media Formation and Paradigm Production: Evolution of the Method of “Distant Reading” and Its Prospects." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 42, (4): pp.104-112. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol42/iss4/11
