SCENARIO OF USE

To get in a few seconds a whole picture of your controversy, investigating and visualizing in the fastest way as possible the time, geographic and relational dimension of issues, along with the top ranked information content not only from current news headlines, but fact sheets, networks, trends, hotspots, blogs, audio visual news and so on.

METHODS, TOOLS, AND EXAMPLES

This exercise is pretty simply based on the use of the powerful search-engine tool Silobreaker. Silobreaker aggregates news from more than 10000 different sources, such as blogs, mutimedia and other on-line journalistic websites. Silobreaker doesn't require registration, but if you sign up (it's free) your queries won't be limited to 30 days back in time.The output of the search is similar to a digital dashboard, with search results on news put together with data visualizations.

As a first step, just type keyword related to your search and let Silobreaker perform a simple search.

As you see in the exemplary pictures below, where a query has been realized for the issue of biometric devices (using the general keyword term 'biometrics'), silobreaker displays as an output emering 'entities' (as result of semantic automated analysis of searches), such as companies, organizations, persons, cities and keyphrases that are part of the controversy. Moreover default display, in the right column, includes selection of You Tube videos related to the issues and of a timegraph visualization of the topic coverage - called 'Content volume'. This latter indicator can also be used to integrate the exercise 'How hot is your controversy' featured in this tutorial.

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Moreover, the tool provides original visualization, based on automatic semantic analysis of texts rethrieved through search:

1. The 'Infocus' window allows to explore link with news and infos on the different entities which are part of a Silobreaker search output.The map has an 'embed' option that allows users to put the content on their own blog/website.

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2. The time chart - here below - lets you explore the time trend of the topic over a selected period, and compare it with other related terms that are automatically generated. You can also add your own search term and edit the key phrase to be inserted in the visualization.

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3. In a 'worldmap', the 'hot spots' of your controversy are located, with the possibility of going over with the mouse on the red point and get the related news/information. Time range is editable also in this graph.

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4. The automatically generated 'relational map', which connects entities and allows editing (to include and exclude different entities) lets you explore the underlying links in the news. By clicking on a single entity you can get detailed information on the selected entities. Selected quotations and documents related to the map are also provide from the tool. The map has an 'embed' option that allows users to put the content on their own blog/website.

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SUGGESTED EXERCISE

Try out the Silobreaker for the swine flu controversy and the nanoparticles controversy, finding out the hot spots of these issues and the main entities that are assembled to it in the news.

BACK TO "EXPLORE MY OWN CONTROVERSY" MAIN PAGE

Related items from Macospol

Explore your own controversy
Use "quick and dirty" tools to understand and grasp different facets of controversies

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