The 4Humanities WhatEvery1Says project (WE1S) uses digital humanities methods to study public discourse about the humanities at large data scales. The project concentrates on, but is not limited to, journalistic articles and media available in digital textual form beginning circa 1981. Our hypothesis is that digital methods can help us learn new things about how news media sources portray the humanities. We hope to use our findings to provide advocates for the humanities with strategies and materials for effective communication about the value of humanistic study and knowledge – with narratives, arguments, scenarios, and evidence that advance, rather than simply react to, public conversation on the place of the humanities in today’s world.

In the process of our work, we are also developing tools and guidelines to create an open, generalizable, and replicable digital humanities methodology.

For more information on the project, read “About” and the WE1S Prospectus. Funded by a $1.1 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, WE1S is based at University of California, Santa Barbara, with core collaborators at California State University, Northridge, and University of Miami.