Communication studies research and big data: always already queer

ABSTRACT “Big data” is neither unified nor stable, but instead offers opportunities for further exploration of queer methods. Communication studies scholars are particularly well suited to engage in this developing area. The potentials are illustrated in this article's description of an in-progress collaborative research project using artificial intelligence to examine public engagement with campus monuments and memorials at a large southeastern university. This discussion of an in-progress big-data research project, a collaboration between scholars of communication, public history/digital humanities, and geography, exemplifies the alignment of communication studies and emerging discussions in queer methods to a degree that we argue communication studies already is and has long been a queer project.