This professor uses data to reveal hidden patterns in centuries of human storytelling
David Bamman, an associate professor at UC Berkeley, utilizes data-driven analysis to uncover patterns in storytelling across various media. His research highlights significant disparities in representation, such as the prevalence of male characters in literature. Bamman emphasizes that cultural analytics serves as a complementary tool to traditional criticism, enhancing our understanding of storytelling's impact on society.
- ▪David Bamman applies computational methods to analyze books, films, and music.
- ▪His research reveals that male characters appear three times more often than female characters in literature.
- ▪Bamman also studies the evolution of cinematic techniques in Hollywood films since 1922.
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| Original publisher | Berkeley News |
| Canonical URL | https://news.berkeley.edu/2026/05/21/this-professor-uses-data-to-reveal-hidden-patterns-in-centuries-of-human-storytelling/ |
| Publication time | Fri, 22 May 2026 00:14:31 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-22T00:16:36.497Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-22T00:16:36.497Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | tZS547h9o4WI |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Arts & culture, Research This professor uses data to reveal hidden patterns in centuries of human storytelling UC Berkeley’s David Bamman applies data-driven analysis to human artistic output — often with surprising results. By Charlotte Khadra May 21, 2026 David Bamman studies culture at a scale few humans ever could. An associate professor in the UC Berkeley School of Information, Bamman uses computational methods to analyze books, films and music, revealing patterns in storytelling, representation and cultural change across decades and even centuries.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Berkeley News.
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