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

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

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/

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.

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.

Which countries intervene most in UN climate
negotiations and how do these interventions
evolve over time?

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

Graphing the number of interventions in the
negotiations of the 21 most active countries
based on daily summaries from the Earth
Negotiations Bulletin (ENB)

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.

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/

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 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

Serbia: connected through think tanks

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.”

Findings 
 
Facebook is an important medium for extremist
groups.
!
Three main clusters based on geographical
proximity.
!
European Counter-Jihadist groups are networked
and transnational.

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”

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.

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?

Findings 
 
Only 5 embassies explicitly mentioned 
the 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

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

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

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.”

innovation #5:"
!
hyperlink analysis to
explore "politics of
association"

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

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

5 opportunities
for journalists

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

social
science
researchers
leading
digital
newsrooms
new ways of
covering
complex issues
=+

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

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?”

reﬂection #1:"
!
from digging to
tracing?

reﬂection #2:"
!
mapping for what
and for whom?

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/
!
Sciences Po médialab - Tools
http://tools.medialab.sciences-po.fr/
Digital Methods Initiative
https://digitalmethods.net 
 
Digital Methods Initiative - Tools
https://tools.digitalmethods.net

Mapping Issues with the Web: An Introduction to Digital Methods

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