Dr. Desmond Patton is a professor studying story to understand the pain and grief experienced by gang members. Social media is giving him the opportunity to gather data rendered by language. Armed with that data, he hopes to create change. Algorithms may lead to being able to identify the next victim or shooter. Emojis to math to empathy and intervention. The social worker takes his heart and mind to the streets.
In an interview on NPR Patton said,
We really try to take in the full picture. So we look at the conversation. We look at the events. We look at the tone of tweets. We look at the actual letters. We look at capitalization. We look at the ways in which punctuation is used. So we take a really in-depth, kind of anthropological, approach to understanding what's happening.
What do you think about his work? How do you think the minutiae within stories (tone, punctuation, spelling, etc.) makes a difference in our world? Leave a comment, please and thank you!
In an interview on NPR Patton said,
We really try to take in the full picture. So we look at the conversation. We look at the events. We look at the tone of tweets. We look at the actual letters. We look at capitalization. We look at the ways in which punctuation is used. So we take a really in-depth, kind of anthropological, approach to understanding what's happening.
What do you think about his work? How do you think the minutiae within stories (tone, punctuation, spelling, etc.) makes a difference in our world? Leave a comment, please and thank you!
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