Date: Monday 16 February 2015
Time: 6.30-8pm
Venue: Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House
Speaker: Professor Kenneth Benoit
Respondent: Kenneth Cukier
Chair: Professor Simon Hix

The ubiquity of "big data" about social, political and economic phenomena has the potential to transform the way we approach social science. In this talk, Professor Benoit outlines the challenges and opportunities to social sciences caused by the rise of big data, with applications and examples. He discusses the rise of the field of data science, and whether this is a threat or a blessing for the traditional social scientific model and its ability to help us better understand society.

Kenneth Benoit (@kenbenoit) is currently Professor of Quantitative Social Research Methods at LSE. He is also Part-Time Professor in the Department of Political Science at Trinity College Dublin, and has previously held a position at the Central European University (Budapest). He is currently Principal Investigator on 5-year grant funded by the European Research Council entitled QUANTESS: Quantitative Text Analysis for the Social Sciences.

Kenneth Cukier (@kncukier) is the Data Editor at The Economist, following a decade at the paper covering business and technology, and as a foreign correspondent (most recently in Japan from 2007-12). Previously he was the technology editor of the Wall Street Journal Asia in Hong Kong and worked at the International Herald Tribune in Paris. In 2002-04 he was a research fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. He is the co-author of "Big Data: A Revolution that Will Transform How We Work, Live and Think" (2013) and "Learning with Big Data: The Future of Education" (2014) with Viktor Mayer-Schönberger.

Simon Hix (@simonjhix) is Professor of European and Comparative Politics and Head of Department of Government at LSE.

Suggested hashtag for this event for Twitter users: #LSEdata

This event is free and open to all with no ticket or pre-registration required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis. For any queries see LSE Events FAQ or contact us at events@lse.ac.uk or 0207 955 6043.

The 2015 LSE Space for Thought Literary Festival 'Foundations' will take place from Monday 23 - Saturday 28 February. LSE’s 7th Literary Festival will explore the foundations of knowledge, society, identity and literature, as well as those of LSE itself, with speakers including Ahmad Zakii Anwar, Anne Fine, John Gray, Elif Shafak, Raja Shehadeh, Will Self and Ali Smith. View the full programme online.

Storify

View a summary of this event in tweets via Storify, The Challenge of Big Data for the Social Sciences

Slides

A copy of Professor Kenneth Benoit's powerpoint presentation is available to download. Download The Challenge of Big Data for the Social Sciences.

A copy of Kenneth Cukier's powerpoint presentation is available to download. Download 'Big Data rerum cognoscere causas' (pdf).

Podcast & Video

A podcast and video of this event is available to download from 'The Challenge of Big Data for the Social Sciences' (pdf).

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CPD

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