Mapping Issues with the Web: An Introduction to Digital Methods

mapping issues with the web:an introduction to digital

methods

23rd September 2014, Columbia University Liliana Bounegru | lilianabounegru.org | @bb_liliana"

Jonathan Gray | jonathangray.org | @jwyg

15 things you always wanted to know about digital methods but were afraid to ask

5 stories"5 innovations"5 opportunities

hmmm…

hmmm…

hmmm…

5 stories"5 innovations"5 opportunities"+ 2 reflections

15 things you always wanted to know about digital methods but were afraid to ask

5 stories

story #1:"

mapping dominant topics and countries in UN climate negotiations

– Leo Hickman, “Can carbon offsetting ever be truly green?”,The Guardian, 3rd September 2008.

“In what seems like a flash, the climate-change debate has lurched from talk of mitigation to

one of adaptation.”

The Atlantic (2014) “The UN's New Focus: Surviving, Not Stopping, Climate Change”.Available at: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/04/the-uns-new-focus-surviving-not-

stopping-climate-change/359929/

“Adaptation turn”

Can the shift from mitigation to adaptation be observed in the UNFCCC negotiations?

Venturini, T., Baya-laffite, N., Cointet, J., Gray, I., Zabban, V., & De Pryck, K. (2014) “Three Maps and Three Misunderstandings  : A Digital Mapping of Climate Diplomacy.” Big Data and Society, 2014, 1(1).

Available at: http://medialab.sciences-po.fr/publications/misunderstandings/

Findings"

Mitigation is more dominant - the majority of the clusters are about mitigation.

Mitigation is much more diverse and distributed.

Adaptation is a much more tightly clustered topic and highly connected to other topics.

Venturini, T., Baya-laffite, N., Cointet, J., Gray, I., Zabban, V., & De Pryck, K. (2014) “Three Maps and Three Misunderstandings  : A Digital Mapping of Climate Diplomacy.” Big Data and Society, 2014, 1(1).

Available at: http://medialab.sciences-po.fr/publications/misunderstandings/

Venturini, T., Baya-laffite, N., Cointet, J., Gray, I., Zabban, V., & De Pryck, K. (2014) “Three Maps and Three Misunderstandings  : A Digital Mapping of Climate Diplomacy.” Big Data and Society, 2014, 1(1).

Available at: http://medialab.sciences-po.fr/publications/misunderstandings/

Findings"

Both adaptation and mitigation are highly visible in negotiations.

Adaptation financing has been central to

climate negotiations from the outset.

There is a noticeable shift towards adaptation during the period we examined.

Venturini, T., Baya-laffite, N., Cointet, J., Gray, I., Zabban, V., & De Pryck, K. (2014) “Three Maps and Three Misunderstandings  : A Digital Mapping of Climate Diplomacy.” Big Data and Society, 2014, 1(1).

Available at: http://medialab.sciences-po.fr/publications/misunderstandings/

Which countries intervene most in UN climate negotiations and how do these interventions

evolve over time?

How is this usually analysed?

The New York Times (2014) “Who’s at the Climate Talks, and What Do They Seek?”.Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/12/05/world/climate-graphic-players.html

What we did differently…

Graphing the number of interventions in the negotiations of the 21 most active countries based on daily summaries from the Earth

Negotiations Bulletin (ENB)

Venturini, T., Baya-laffite, N., Cointet, J., Gray, I., Zabban, V., & De Pryck, K. (2014) “Three Maps and Three Misunderstandings  : A Digital Mapping of Climate Diplomacy.” Big Data and Society, 2014, 1(1).

Available at: http://medialab.sciences-po.fr/publications/misunderstandings/

Findings"

Notable stability in presence and intervention of countries.

Notable exceptions include Bolivia and Philippines who are becoming more prominent

in recent negotiations.

Most active are China (representing G77), United States and Europe.

Countries tend to be more active when they host the negotiations.

Venturini, T., Baya-laffite, N., Cointet, J., Gray, I., Zabban, V., & De Pryck, K. (2014) “Three Maps and Three Misunderstandings  : A Digital Mapping of Climate Diplomacy.” Big Data and Society, 2014, 1(1).

Available at: http://medialab.sciences-po.fr/publications/misunderstandings/

Wired Italia (2014) “Cambiamenti del clima: 20 anni di conferenze”. March 2014. No. 60.

Wired Italia (2014) “Cambiamenti del clima: 20 anni di conferenze”. March 2014. No. 60.

Wired Italia (2014) “Cambiamenti del clima: 20 anni di conferenze”. March 2014. No. 60.

Wired Italia (2014) “Beautiful Information, in mostra le migliori infografiche di Wired”.Available at: http://www.wired.it/attualita/media/2014/03/04/beautiful-information-infografiche-wired/

Wired Italia (2014) “Beautiful Information, in mostra le migliori infografiche di Wired”.Available at: http://www.wired.it/attualita/media/2014/03/04/beautiful-information-infografiche-wired/

story #2:"

mapping the rise of the far right in Europe with

the web and social media

The Guardian (2013) “The rise of far right parties across Europe is a chilling echo of the 1930s”.Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/15/far-right-threat-europe-integration

Huffington Post (2014) “Sudden Rise of Far Right Groups in EU Parliament Rings Alarm Bells Across Europe”. Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elinadav-heymann/sudden-rise-of-far-right-

_b_5512961.html

New York Times (2014) “Populist Party Gaining Muscle to Push Britain to the Right”.Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/08/world/europe/populist-party-gaining-muscle-to-push-

britain-to-the-right.html

What are the recruitment methods of far right groups?

Are current recruitment counter-measures proving effective?

What kinds of issues are most active amongst far right groups?

How are far right extremist groups connected to populist right and other right wing groups?

Profiles for 13 European countries.

1. List of links per country

2. Analyse links between them

3. Study issues and actors

Findings

New issues (e.g. environment, anti-globalisation and rights), principles and

recruitment techniques.

Counter-measures are outdated. !

Islamophobia is located primarily in the North.

Greece: blood and soil and organic markets

Rogers, R. et al (2013) “Right-Wing Formations in Europe and Their Counter-Measures: An Online Mapping”. Digital Methods Initiative. https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/RightWingPopulismStudy

Hungary: horse and yurt recruitment festivals

Rogers, R. et al (2013) “Right-Wing Formations in Europe and Their Counter-Measures: An Online Mapping”. Digital Methods Initiative. https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/RightWingPopulismStudy

Taking back the yurt?

Serbia: connected through think tanks

Rogers, R. et al (2013) “Right-Wing Formations in Europe and Their Counter-Measures: An Online Mapping”. Digital Methods Initiative. https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/RightWingPopulismStudyRogers, R. et al (2013) “Right-Wing Formations in Europe and Their Counter-Measures: An Online Mapping”. Digital Methods Initiative. https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/RightWingPopulismStudy

Counter-Jihadist groups on social media

The Guardian (2012) “Far-right anti-Muslim network on rise globally as Breivik trial opens”. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/apr/14/breivik-trial-norway-mass-murderer

Hope Not Hate (2012) “Counter-Jihad Report”.Available at: http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/counter-jihad/

Are different Counter-Jihadist groups in Europe connected? If so how?

Digital Methods Initiative. “Counter-Jihadist Networks: Mapping the Connections Between Facebook Groups in Europe.”

Digital Methods Initiative. “Counter-Jihadist Networks: Mapping the Connections Between Facebook Groups in Europe.”

Findings

Facebook is an important medium for extremist groups.

!Three main clusters based on geographical

proximity. !

European Counter-Jihadist groups are networked and transnational.

Digital Methods Initiative. “Counter-Jihadist Networks: Mapping the Connections Between Facebook Groups in Europe.”

Who are the new leaders?

Findings"!

Offline leaders are active on Facebook. !

There are also new emerging online leaders. !

New technique for identifying online leaders.

story #3:"

who’s talking about"“care drain”

“care drain”

Mills et al (2008). “Should active recruitment of health workers from "sub-Saharan Africa be viewed as a crime?”. Lancet 2008; 371: 685–88.

The Guardian (2011). “Assessing the cause and effect of health worker migration”.!Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/global-health-workers/health-workers-move-from-area-of-origin

– Sue George, “Assessing the cause and effect of health worker migration”, The Guardian, 18th January 2011.

“Health worker migration is a big issue – in 2005, it was widely reported that there were more Malawian doctors in Manchester than

Malawi. Now, it seems, there are more Ethiopian doctors in Chicago than in Ethiopia.”

– Sue George, “Assessing the cause and effect of health worker migration”, The Guardian, 18th January 2011.

“[a 2010 global code of practice] sets out guiding principles and voluntary international standards for recruitment of health workers, to increase the consistency of national policies

and discourage unethical practices”

Which actors in the UK health sector are talking about the migration of health workers?

Rogers, R., Sanchez Querubin, N. & Kril, A. (2015) Ageing Places: A Digital Issue Mapping.Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam Press.

Findings for UK"

Notable difference between sectors.

Most vocal are government and academia.

Less discussion amongst healthcare NGOs.

Next to no discussion in private sector.

Who is recruiting Polish health workers?

Findings for Poland"!

Demand for Polish care workers greater outside country than within.

!

Based on recruitment postings, Poland looks to be susceptible to care drain.

Rogers, R., Sanchez Querubin, N. & Kril, A. (2015) Ageing Places: A Digital Issue Mapping.Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam Press.

story #4:"

which US embassies acknowledged"

cablegate?

The Guardian (2010) “US embassy cables leak sparks global diplomatic crisis”. Available at:http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/nov/28/us-embassy-cable-leak-diplomacy-crisis

Cables from 274 embassies, consulates and diplomatic missions.

US Embassies: http://www.usembassy.gov/

Do the embassies mentioned in the cables acknowledge the issue on their official

websites?

1. Get links for US embassy websites 2. Compile list of embassies mentioned in cables 3. Compare lists 4. Query mentioned embassy website for key

terms using Google Scraper tool 5. Get number of cables per embassy 6. Visualise output

Findings

Only 5 embassies explicitly mentionedthe leaks on their websites.

Digital Methods Initiative (2011) “The Response of the Source”.Available at: https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/ResponsesoftheSources

story #5:"

mapping the influence of

climate skeptics

BBC News (2007) “BBC switches off climate special”. Available at:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6979596.stm

– Richard Rogers, Digital Methods(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013), pp.7-8

“The skeptics were increasingly at the top of the news. […] Are the skeptics at the top of the

web too?”

Who talks about climate skeptics?

Climate Skeptics"!

S. Fred Singer Robert Balling Sallie Baliunas

Patrick Michaels Richard Lindzen

Steven Milloy Timothy Ball

Paul Driessen Willie Soon

Sherwood B. Idso Frederick Seitz

Climate Skeptic Organisations"!

American Enterprise Institute American Legislative Exchange Council

Center for Science and Public Policy Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow

Competitive Enterprise Institute Frontiers of Freedom

Marshall Institute Heartland Institute

Tech Central Station

Google Scraper: https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/ToolGoogleScraper

Findings

Influence of climate skeptics in media is disproportionate given their relatively marginal

influence in key spaces.

Digital Methods Initiative (2007) “Climate Change Skeptics”.Available at: https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/ClimateChangeSkeptics

5 innovations

innovation #1:"!

social media and web as data about society

“The social is visible only by the traces it leaves..” – Bruno Latour, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network

Theory. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 8

““The interest of electronic media lies in the fact that every interaction that passes through them

leaves traces..” – Bruno Latour & Tommaso Venturini, “The Social Fabric:

Digital Traces and Quali-quantitative Methods”, p. 6

Web and social media data are digital traces of the social.

Not just content, but metadata, relationships and interactions.

Digital methods are “methods of the medium” designed to repurpose digital objects such as tags, likes, links and hashtags to study issues.

Some tools that organise web and social media for research…

“Netvizz is a tool that extracts data from different sections of the Facebook platform

(personal profile, groups, pages) for research purposes.”

Rieder, B. (2013). Studying Facebook via data extraction: the Netvizz application. In WebSci '13 Proceedings of the 5th Annual ACM Web Science Conference (pp. 346-355). New York: ACM.

Netvizz: https://tools.digitalmethods.net/netvizz/facebook/netvizz/

“The Twitter Capture and Analysis Toolset(DMI-TCAT) captures tweets and allows for

multiple analyses (hashtags, mentions, users, search, ...).”

Borra, E. & Rieder, B. (2014) “Programmed method: developing a toolset for capturing and analyzing tweets”. Aslib Journal of Information Management. Vol. 66 No. 3: 262-278.

TCAT: https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/ToolDmiTcat

TCAT: https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/ToolDmiTcat

innovation #2:"!

search engines as research machines

– R. Rogers, F. Jansen, Stevenson, M. & Weltevrede, E. (2009) “Mapping Democracy”. Global Information Society Watch 2009.

“We look at Google results and see society instead of Google.”

For example: !

What kinds of rights are most prominently recognised or referred to in different countries?

Query the term “rights” in the local languages in the local Google versions.

!

List top ten distinctive rights types in the order that Google provided them.

Google.se with query “rattigheter” (13.07.09) Google.fi with query “oikeudet” (13.07.09) Google.ee with query “oigused” (15.07.09) Google.lv with query “tiesibas” (16.07.09)

Google.co.uk with query “rights” (13.07.09) Google.nl with query “rechten” (13.07.09)

Google.be with query “rechten van” (15.07.09) Google.be with query “droits” (14.07.09) Google.lu with query “rechte” (15.07.09) Google.de with query “rechte” (15.07.09) Google.at with query “rechte” (15.07.09) Google.ch with query “rechte” (15.07.09) Google.fr with query “droits” (14.07.09)

Google.pt with query “direitos” (14.07.09) Google.es with query “derechos” (13.07.09)

Google.it with query “diritto al” OR “diritto all” OR “diritto alla” (13.07.09) Google.ro with query “drepturile” (13.07.09) Google.mo with query “drepturile” (13.07.09)

Google.ru with query “prava” (13.07.09) Google.com.tr with query “haklari” (17.07.09)

GGoogle.com.ph with query “karapatang” (16.07.09) Google.ci with query “droits” (17.07.09)

Google.com.au with query “rights” (14.07.09) Google.ca with query “rights” (15.07.09) Google.ca with query “droits” (15.07.09)

Google.com with query “rights” (14.07.09) Google.com with query “derechos” (15.07.09)

Google.com.mx with query “derechos” (15.07.09) Google.com.br with query “direitos” (15.07.09)

Google.ar with query “derechos” (15.07.09) Google.pe with query “derechos” (15.07.09)

R. Rogers, F. Jansen, Stevenson, M. & Weltevrede, E. (2009) “Mapping Democracy”. Global Information Society Watch. Available at: http://www.giswatch.org/fr/node/158

innovation #3:"!

co-occurrence analysis to identify themes

Venturini, T., Baya-laffite, N., Cointet, J., Gray, I., Zabban, V., & De Pryck, K. (2014) “Three Maps and Three Misunderstandings  : A Digital Mapping of Climate Diplomacy.” Big Data and Society, 2014, 1(1).

Available at: http://medialab.sciences-po.fr/publications/misunderstandings/

innovation #4:"!

network analysis to identify actors

– Bernhard Rieder. “Studying Facebook via data extraction: the Netvizz application.”

“The main tenet of [social network analysis] is to envision groups and other social units as

networks, that is, as connected ensembles that emerge from tangible and direct connections (friendships, work relationships, joint leisure, direct interactions, etc.) rather than as social

categories.”

“Gephi is an interactive visualization and exploration platform for all kinds of networks

and complex systems, dynamic and hierarchical graphs.”

Gephi: http://gephi.org

innovation #5:"!

hyperlink analysis to explore "politics of

association"

Rogers, R. et al (2013) “Right-Wing Formations in Europe and Their Counter-Measures: An Online Mapping”. Digital Methods Initiative. https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/RightWingPopulismStudyRogers, R. et al (2013) “Right-Wing Formations in Europe and Their Counter-Measures: An Online Mapping”. Digital Methods Initiative. https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/RightWingPopulismStudy

The Issue Crawler

“A software tool that locates and visualizes networks on the web”

Issue Crawler: https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/ToolIssueCrawler

Issue Crawler: https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/ToolIssueCrawler

Issue Crawler: https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/ToolIssueCrawler

Issue Crawler: https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/ToolIssueCrawler

Issue Crawler: https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/ToolIssueCrawler

Hyphe: http://hyphe.medialab.sciences-po.fr/demo/

5 opportunities for journalists

Data Journalism Handbook: http://datajournalismhandbook.org/

social science

researchers

leading digital

newsrooms

new ways of covering

complex issues=+

Some preliminary thoughts…

opportunity #1:"!

using digital methods to identify sources

opportunity #2:"!

using social media and web as sources

opportunity #3:"!

new forms of analysis and verification

opportunity #4:"!

establishing source partisanship

opportunity #5:"!

new ways to present complex issues

Wired Italia (2014) “Cambiamenti del clima: 20 anni di conferenze”. March 2014. No. 60.

Digital Methods Initiative. “Counter-Jihadist Networks: Mapping the Connections Between Facebook Groups in Europe.”

Reuters (2013) “Connected China”. Available at: http://china.fathom.info/

– Bruno Latour. “A Cautious Prometheus? A Few Steps Toward a Philosophy of Design”. Talks for the Design History Society Falmouth, Cornwall, 3rd

September 2008

“So here is the question I wish to raise to designers: where are the visualization tools that

allow the contradictory and controversial nature of matters of concern to be

represented?”

In conclusion…

2 reflections

reflection #1:"!

from digging to tracing?

reflection #2:"!

mapping for what and for whom?

From physical to social maps?

Issue mapping for journalism?

To recap…

1. story #1: climate negotiations 2. story #2: rise of the far right 3. story #3: “care drain” 4. story #4: cablegate 5. story #5: climate skeptics 6. innovation #1: social media and web as data 7. innovation #2: search as research 8. innovation #3: co-occurrence analysis 9. innovation #4: network analysis 10. innovation #5: hyperlink analysis 11. opportunity #1: identifying sources 12. opportunity #2: social media and web as sources 13. opportunity #3: analysis and verification 14. opportunity #4: source partisanship 15. opportunity #5: presentation 16. reflection #1: from digging to tracing? 17. reflection #2: mapping for what?

Thank You!Liliana Bounegru | lilianabounegru.org | @bb_liliana

Jonathan Gray | jonathangray.org | @jwyg

Sciences Po médialab http://www.medialab.sciences-po.fr/

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http://tools.medialab.sciences-po.fr/

Digital Methods Initiative https://digitalmethods.netDigital Methods Initiative - Tools https://tools.digitalmethods.net