We parsed and crunched online articles about fracking from one of the biggest mainstream magazines to see, if anything interesting comes out. Well, this is the result, we are not claiming any specific success, judge for yourself.
Visit the Wikipedia is you are not sure what fracking is.
2012, first quarter
2011 second quarter
2011 third quarter
2011 last quarter
2012 first quarter
Heatmap of words
The lighter the color the bigger the role those words had in that quarter. Subjects with similar activity maps are clustered together to some degree.
Casual observations of the heatmap
As we see, in 2011 Q1 whole thing just started getting publicity, just few words like “climate”, “public”, “protest” and “commite” were amongst more active.
In Q2 “methane” and safety were the big themes, “climate” enhanced and some new themes were open.
Q3 is very pronounced in whole lower cluster of words like “council”, “planning”, “people”, “government” and “safety”, “fear” and “exploration”. “Climate” made it’s peak and there was not much talk about “methane” any more.
Again in Q4 whole upper cluster of words becomes very active. The most pronounced seem to be “protesters”, “committee”, “chemicals”, “concerns” and “tremors” and “pressure”. In the bottom “water” pops out.
2012 Q1 things got more calm. The theme that was slowly growing and seems enhanced here are “earthquakes” and “safe” becomes more prominent again. The theme of “water” and “oil” persist from the previous quarter.
Word associations
At the end we decided to look into words associated with words that have higher human/social context in our view. Bigger font means bigger association.
Well that’s it. We do this because we are interested in data visualization and like to practice on real examples. We also believe any additional overview of the information that touches lives of the people is in general public good. We don’t claim we found out anything special based on this work. Don’t claim anything based on our results and work, make your own work if you want that!
If you have any comments or questions about it, write them below or email us at dataoko AT fastmail.fm.
While the information in this blogpost is believed to be true at the date of its publication, neither the authors, the editors, nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions that may be made. The publisher makes NO warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein.
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