Johanna Drucker on data vs. capta

Johanna Drucker in Humanities Approaches to Graphical Display:

Capta is “taken” actively while data is assumed to be a “given” able to be recorded and observed. From this distinction, a world of differences arises. Humanistic inquiry acknowledges the situated, partial, and constitutive character of knowledge production, the recognition that knowledge is constructed, taken, not simply given as a natural representation of pre-existing fact.

Also, in her paper on Graphesis: Visual knowledge production and representation:

Data are considered objective “information” while capta is information that is captured because it conforms to the rules and hypothesis set for the experiment.

Hat tip to Mark Hansen when he mentioned the former at #NICAR14. And hat tip to Tim Carmody for first introducing me to Drucker when he recommended The Visible Word.

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