Big data stimulates various Utopian and ant-itopian rhetoric. A big data paradigm
of communication research has emerged. Taking a critical political economy pers
pective, we can identify the political, economic and cultural driving forces behind
the big data transformation of communication research. In the political dimension,
big data communication is to provide the ruling wisdom; in the economic
perspective, big data is a profit tool of communication research; in the cultural
dimension, big data reflects anxiety of communication research; in the dimension
of technology, technological rationality impacts human emotion. The future of big
data communication research should return to Marx, adhere to critical orientation,
strengthen the process management, increase the humanistic thinking, explore
alternative paradigm theory, methodology and ethics dimension to gain approval of
other disciplines and mainstream evaluation system.