Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
This alternative interface is indeed far more powerful than that shown in
Figure 3.2 but also requires more “technical” knowledge from the analyst, more
ease when manipulating metalinguistic concepts.
While the interface in Figure 3.2 only requires the analyst to actually describe
the conceptual term, the interface shown in Figure 5.6 actually requires the analyst:
- to
firstconfigurehisdomain
of analysis or expertise,
- before actually describing it.
The example shown in Figure 5.6 is still fairly simple: it shows two conceptual
terms which already make up a very restrictive generic configuration defining (part
of) the topical structure for thematizing a knowledge object in the text. In this
particular case, the analyst can select either one conceptual term or the other, or
indeed both at once.
The analyst (where he selects both conceptual terms), by doing so, in the later
case, signals that the topic he has identified and described in the audiovisual text
relates to
the actual configurationof the two conceptual terms
, more than to just one
or the other conceptual terms taken in isolation. In our example (Figure 5.6), the
analyst decides that the freely-entered verbal expression <Chavín religious
construct> indexes the two conceptual terms [Civilization] and [Cultural construct]
together!
Of course, the analyst may select only one term - either [Civilization] or
[Cultural construct]. This being the case, he carries out a project of description
similar to that which he carries out using the interface shown in Figure 3.2.
Bearing in mind that this is a very simple example (i.e. a definitional
configuration made up of only two conceptual terms), one can fairly easily see that
allowing the analyst (a certain degree of) freedom to configure his knowledge object
(that is, to select from a set of conceptual terms a
sub-set of pertinent terms
, or even
a single conceptual term
), opens up very interesting possibilities in the development
of content analysis forms for
audiovisualcollectionswithveryvariedthemes
.
More particularly, here, we think of the audiovisual collection which constitutes
the Audiovisual Research Archives Program.
5
This collection covers a wide variety
of disciplines in human and social sciences. In this context, it is difficult to envisage
5 An R&D program we set up at ESCoM in 2001, devoted to scientific, technical and
practical issues relating to the constitution, analysis, publication, exploitation and
conservation of bodies of scientific and cultural heritage using information and audiovisual
technologies (for further information, see [STO 03c; STO 07; STO 11a]); the portal of the
ARA (AAR) program is: http://www.archivesaudiovisuelles.fr/.
