The doctoral dissertation in the field of Marketing will be examined at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Business Studies at Joensuu Campus and online.
What is the topic of your doctoral research? Why is it important to study the topic?
The doctoral research examines digital epistemology in the new data era: how data, platforms, analytical methods, and theoretical concepts jointly shape what can count as reliable knowledge. Although grounded empirically in digital tourism research, its broader concern is the transformation of abundant digital traces into valid, transparent, and theoretically meaningful knowledge. This matters because societies increasingly rely on platform data, AI-generated content, automated analytics, and large-scale digital traces for research and decision-making. However, data are not neutral. Platforms filter visibility, methods may operate as black boxes, and inherited concepts may distort interpretation. The study proposes a platform-method-concept framework to make digital knowledge production more transparent, explainable, and conceptually sound.
What are the key findings or observations of your doctoral research?
My doctoral research finds that digital data do not automatically produce reliable knowledge. Data are shaped before analysis by platform algorithms, visibility rules, language biases, synthetic content, and platform governance. The research develops a three-layer digital epistemology: platform, method, and concept. Its key contribution is showing that credible digital knowledge requires all three layers to be examined together. The work introduces algorithmic selectivity as a sixth filter in knowledge production, develops KPTopic as an explainable graph-based method for analysing large text datasets, and reconstructs the conative image by separating intention, volition, and action. Its broader value is a practical diagnostic for making data-driven research more transparent, explainable, and theoretically meaningful.
How can the results of your doctoral research be utilised in practice?
Practically, the research can be used as a diagnostic for data-driven decision-making. Organizations should first assess where their data come from and how platforms rank, filter, or suppress visibility. Second, they should require analytical tools whose path from raw data to insight can be inspected and explained. Third, they should check whether the concepts guiding interpretation distinguish intentions from actions. In tourism, this means treating ratings, rankings, and reviews as mediated signals rather than direct measures of visitor experience, supplementing platform metrics with surveys, direct feedback, and social media monitoring, and using semantic analysis to identify intention-action gaps and service friction points. The same logic can support responsible AI and platform-data use beyond tourism.
What are the key research methods and materials used in your doctoral research?
My doctoral research followed a three-layer platform-method-concept design. First, I conducted a platform-based systematic review of 234 peer-reviewed TripAdvisor studies, using PRISMA procedures, manual thematic coding, and a distinction between contribution of theory and contribution to theory. Second, I developed and tested KPTopic on 11,729 TripAdvisor reviews from Finnish municipalities, combining NLP, semantic network analysis, and comparison with LDA and BERTopic to assess transparency, explainability, and semantic coherence. Third, I carried out a critical conceptual analysis of psychology, business, and tourism literature on conation and destination image, reconstructing the conative framework by separating intention, volition, and observable action.
Although the dissertation develops a broader framework for digital epistemology in the new data era, its empirical grounding is strongly connected to Finland. The data, testing, and practical context are largely based on Finnish tourism destinations, Finnish municipalities, and the Finnish experience industry. For example, KPTopic was tested with TripAdvisor reviews from Finnish municipalities, and the broader doctoral journey included collaboration with Finnish business and tourism actors through the Business Finland funded Finland Experience Industry project, Visit Finland, and the Smart City of Helsinki project. This makes the dissertation not only a theoretical contribution to knowledge production, but also a practically relevant study for Finnish tourism businesses and organizations seeking to use digital data more critically, transparently, and responsibly.
The doctoral dissertation of Peng Yang, M.Sc., entitled Knowledge Production in the New Data Era : A Tourism Platform-Method-Concept Digital Epistemology, will be examined at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Business Studies. The opponent will be Professor Berta Ferrer-Rosell, University of Lleida, and the custos will be Professor Juho Pesonen, University of Eastern Finland. The language of the public defence is English.
For further information, please contact:
Peng Yang, peng.yang(at)uef.fi, +358 50 405 6191
