Issue Animals Research

With climate change, animals become endangered. Global warming as well as global cooling threatens the habitat of species, as animals migrate or become extinct. Organizations such as Greenpeace and WWF are committed to raise awareness of these issues. For this research, data and images were scraped from Google News, Google and Technorati to find out which animals that are endangered by climate change (Issue Animals) turn up in the different spheres (Web, News, Blogosphere). The popularity of endangered species in different spheres is ranked and presented in text and image clouds. In all it was found that the animals that stand for the issue differ according to the sphere, or sphere’s leading device, whereby in particular the most favorite for all spaces (the polar bear) loses ground in Google Web.

Research Question: Are there disproportionate amounts of attention paid to particular animals in (new) media accounts about climate change?

For the issue of climate change, how prominent is each animal (in text and image)? Are there significant differences per 'sphere' (web, news, blogosphere) in the frequency with which each animal is referenced?

Issue Animals Hierarchy

What is the hierarchy of Issue Animals in the climate change according to the web, the news and the blogosphere? Is the hierarchy different in text and image, across the 'three spheres'? Are some animals for instance more popular (in frequency of image appearance) due to their iconographic cuteness? Is there a difference in popularity of animals with professional journalists (measured via google news) and amateur picture uploaders (measured by flickr images served by technorati)? Put differently, are the same Issue Animals popular in different “spheres” (where spheres are defined as distinct device-created spaces on the web)?

Issue Animals Hierarchy in Text

• google
• google news
• technorati

Starting points:

• Query: "climate change" + endangered animals
• Endangered animals lists are taken from greenpeace & wwf. In composing and recomposing the list throughout the process we take into consideration the names of the animals should not be too general and not too specific, to get the most relevant results (the term 'bird' returns to many results and is refined as 'eagle,' 'crane,' and puffin'). Furthermore, the word 'fox' also returns FOX News results, so the animal 'fox' is refined as 'red fox'. These refinements are derived from more specific endangered species lists from greenpeace & wwf & livescience. The exeption is 'cow'. 'Cow' was added to the list because image research showed cows are very popular images in the climate change debate. Not as an endangered species due to climate change, but as as a cause for climate change due to the methane emissions from burping cows
  • "polar bear"
  • "red fox"
  • "sea turtle"
  • marmot
  • penguin
  • eagle
  • crane
  • puffin
  • walrus
  • whale
  • dolphin
  • panda
  • orangutan
  • elephant
  • frog
  • tiger
  • pika
  • cow

Google

• Tools:
  • Scrape Google
  • Analyse/Compare lists
  • SVGCloud
• Method:
  • copy top 100 Google results "climate change" (incl ads) & paste in Scrape Google tool. Scrape Google top 100 returns for query "climate change" with animal x. Result files: IssueAnimals Cow RedFox SeaTurtle Marmot
  • use Analyse/Compare lists tool to get a list of unique URLs per animal. paste results from Scrape Google files per single animal (excel>edit>paste special) as a unicode document in .xls. select colomn d and paste url lists in both 'list 1' as 'list 2' in Analyse/Compare lists. settings: tag the following boxes: "TCI" urls (works like harvester); one url per line in both lists (excludes format options for list2 and removes harvest functionality from list1); only return hosts.
• Result: Ranking Issue Animals by number of mentionings by single urls in the Google top 100 "climate change": ResultIssueAnimalsGoogle

• the results are visualized as a tagcloud by using the SVGCloud tool. the resulting tagcloud file (.sgv) is futher designed using Adobe Illustrator. tagcloud results:

Google News

• Tools:
  • Scrape Google News
  • SVGCloud
• Method:
  • scrape google news using Scrape Google News tool. search for one line per query "climate change" "animal x":
    • "climate change" "polar bear"
    • "climate change" "red fox"
    • "climate change" "sea turtle"
    • "climate change" marmot
    • "climate change" penguin
    • "climate change" eagle
    • "climate change" crane
    • "climate change" puffin
    • "climate change" walrus
    • "climate change" whale
    • "climate change" dolphin
    • "climate change" panda
    • "climate change" orangutan
    • "climate change" elephant
    • "climate change" frog
    • "climate change" tiger
    • "climate change" pika
    • "climate change" cow

• result Scrape Google News file: climate_change_animals2result15Jul1209.txt
• Result: Ranking Issue Animals by number of mentionings in Google News related to "climate change": ResultIssueAnimalsGoogleNews

• the results are visualized as a tagcloud by using the SVGCloud tool. the resulting tagcloud file (.sgv) is futher designed using Adobe Illustrator. tagcloud results:

Technorati

• Tools:
  • SVGCloud
• Method:
  • Query technorati for blog posts on blogs with any, a little, some, and a lot authority with “climate change” + “animal x” :
    • "climate change" "polar bear"
    • "climate change" "red fox"
    • "climate change" "sea turtle"
    • "climate change" marmot
    • "climate change" penguin
    • "climate change" eagle
    • "climate change" crane
    • "climate change" puffin
    • "climate change" walrus
    • "climate change" whale
    • "climate change" dolphin
    • "climate change" panda
    • "climate change" orangutan
    • "climate change" elephant
    • "climate change" frog
    • "climate change" tiger
    • "climate change" pika
    • "climate change" cow

• Result: Ranking Issue Animals by number of mentionings in blogs with varying authority related to "climate change":
  • Authority, any: ResultsIssueAnimalsTechnoratiAny
  • Authority, a lot: ResultsIssueAnimalsTechnoratiALot
  • Authority, some: ResultsIssueAnimalsTechnoratiSome
  • Authority, a little: ResultsIssueAnimalsTechnoratiALittle
• the results are visualized as a tagcloud by using the SVGCloud tool. the resulting tagcloud file (.sgv) is futher designed using Adobe Illustrator. tagcloud results:

Findings Issue Animals Hierarchy Text

• Google results are distributed across all the animals not particularly favoring one issue animal. Taking the other results in consideration, the low frequency of appearance of the polar bear is remarkable.
• Google news results show a preference for the polar bear. The second favorite animal is the cow. Since google news results are time based (oldest article is about a month old) favorite issue animals may change. The cow as cause of climate change being a news item may explain the high frequency of appearance. To do: Review google news results in a month to see if favorite issue animals have changed drammatically or not.
• Technorati favors the polar bear as issue animal as well. The range between most and least favorite issue animals are the most extreme in this sphere. We made a distinction between blog posts from blogs with varying authority to see if blogs with a lot authority had different favorite issue animals compared to blogs with little authority. This is not the case. Issue animal favorites are more dependent on sphere.

Issue Animals Hierarchy in Images

• google images
• google news images
• technorati photos

Google Images

• Method:
  • query images.google.com for "climate change."
  • count similar animals in all results. There are 1,420,000 images in 107,000,000 web results, images.google.com presents only 918 images. 40 images are animal images:
    • overview (11) [not represented in image cloud]
    • polar bear (6)
    • birds (4)
    • panda (2)
    • penguin (2)
    • camel (2)
    • all other animal images (1)
  • scale images by frequency of appearance and make a cloud:
  • result:

Google News Images

• Method:
  • query news.google.com for "climate change" set the diplay of results to 'Image version.'
  • count similar animals in all results. There are 3.095 images in 25,933 articles, news.google.com presents only 782 images. 30 images are animal images:
    • polar bear (4)
    • cow (4)
    • birds (4)
    • sheep (3)
    • mamooth (3)
    • fossil (2)
    • penguin (2)
    • fish (2)
    • all other animal images (1)
  • scale images by frequency of appearance and make a cloud:

Technorati Photos

• Method:
  • query technorati.com/photos for "climate change."
  • count and rank animals in all results
• total results: 4100 images
• total animals: 104 images
• polar bears (34)
• dogs (10)
• fish (9)
• butterflies (6)
• giraffes (4)
• tigers (4)
• birds (4)
• horses (4)
• whales (3)
• sea creatures (3)
• penguins (3)
• cats (3)
• bees (3)
• cows (2)
• wasbeer (1)
• bock (1)
• fossil (1)
• goat (1)
• gorilla (1)
• panda (1)
• spider (1)
• squirrel (1)

• • scale images and make a cloud

Findings Issue Animals Hierarchy Images

Preliminary findings:

• blogosphere: mainly people dressed up as issue animals, polar bear most popular costume. New issue animal appears: the dog (as activist's pet). Illustrative polar bear cloud:
  

• google news: small number of animals, images of animals are all photos of real animals. polar bear most popular issue animal and a new issue animal appears: cow (as cause of climate change). After this finding we added 'cow' to the list of issue animals.
• google: small number but wide variety of issue animals with both images of real animals and images of people (activists) dressed up as animals. Google images presents results from both the blogosphere (or flickr-sphere) and the news-sphere. To do: count and visualize images that are cross-spherical. Is google images the only sphere where images from other spheres are presented or is this also common in other spheres?

Climate Change + Endangered Species Issue Network

Who works on "climate change" +"endangered species" and do they form network?
Method: Google scraper query: "climate change" "endangered species", max 100 results
GoogleScraper results
Harvest Results in the Issuecrawler harvester and launch crawl. settings: 2 - 2 (although 1-3 might have been better)

• Issuecrawler Map network "climate change" +"endangered species":
  

Dump/to do

Flickr:

• zoeken op "climate change" en related tags bekijken (erik, kunnen we hier ook de delicious related tag browser op loslaten?)

* Tool: ScrapeGoogle

• Method: Scrape Google top 100 returns for query "climate change" with animal x.
• Result 1: Ranking of climate change IssueAnimals based on the number of mentioning per animal in Google top 100 for the query "climate change."
• Result 2: Ranking of URLs in the Google top 100 "climate change" per IssueAnimal
• Visualization result 2: URL tag cloud per animal

Query 1: "climate change" +"polar bear" "climate change" +"red fox" "climate change" +turtle "climate change" +marmot "climate change" +penguin "climate change" +bird "climate change" +walrus

result file: animals_climate_change100withads09Jul1311

Query 2: "climate change" +whale "climate change" +dolphin "climate change" +panda "climate change" +orangutan "climate change" +elephant "climate change" +frog "climate change" +tiger "climate change" +pika

result file: animals_climate_changetwo100withads09Jul1311

Ranking of climate change IssueAnimals based on the number of mentioning per animal in Google top 100 for the query "climate change."

• bird: 1119
• polar bear 683
• whale: 674
• butterfly: 584
• elephant: 578
• penguin: 577
• frog: 501
• panda: 480
• dolphin: 465
• turtle: 458
• walrus: 426
• krill: 394
• red fox: 317
• tiger: 308
• marmot: 305
• pika: 304
• orangutan: 239

Visualization: URL tag cloud per animal. Tags are URLs per issue animal, size tags depends on number of mentionings animal in URL.

Defining Issue Animals Which issue animals are mentioned on the web when discussing "climate change"?

Google: "climate change" copy first 100 results (incl ads) & paste in ScrapeGoogle tool ToolGoogleScraper

animal lists: greenpeace & wwf & livescience

Tool: ScrapeGoogle Query: "climate change" +"polar bear" "climate change" +"red fox" "climate change" +turtle "climate change" +marmot "climate change" +penguin "climate change" +bird "climate change" +walrus

result file: animals_climate_change100withads09Jul1311

"climate change" +whale "climate change" +dolphin "climate change" +panda "climate change" +orangutan "climate change" +elephant "climate change" +frog "climate change" +tiger "climate change" +pika

result file: animals_climate_changetwo100withads09Jul1311

results animals:

polar bear 683 red fox: 317 turtle: 458 marmot: 305 penguin: 577 bird: 1119 walrus: 2426 butterfly: 584 krill: 394

• google images "climate change":
  

• Flickr results "climate change":
  

• google_climate_change2.jpg:
  

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Tags:

delicious related tags2 google image scraper2 google news scraper2 google scraper2 issue animals2 issuecrawler2 pagerank2 source distance1 tag cloud generator2 technorati scraper2 create new tag

, view all tags

• Issue_animals_google_news_images.tiff: issue animals google news images

• Issue_animals_google_news_images.pdf: issue animals google news images