Mapped: Every Protest on the Planet Since 1979

Foreign Policy Magazine ^ | AUGUST 22, 2013 | J. DANA STUSTER

[brityank]

Mapped: Every Protest on the Planet Since 1979

From Cairo to Wall Street to the West Bank, plotting a world of upheaval.

BY J. DANA STUSTER | AUGUST 22, 2013

This is what data from a world in turmoil looks like. The Global Database of Events, Language, and Tone (GDELT) tracks news reports and codes them for 58 fields, from where an incident took place to what sort of event it was (these maps look at protests, violence, and changes in military and police posture) to ethnic and religious affiliations, among other categories. The dataset has recorded nearly 250 million events since 1979, according to its website, and is updated daily.

John Beieler, a doctoral candidate at Penn State, has adapted these data into striking maps, like the one above of every protest recorded in GDELT -- a breathtaking visual history lesson. Some events to watch for as you scroll through the timeline:

[ecomcon]

“Where this is so important is that news media is really our only cross-national comparative dataset capturing human society at this scale, so what this map reflects is the view of global protests conveyed by the news media over time.... [It] shows how media coverage of protests has increased so massively over the past decade...”

All this shows is what the msm decides to report in a specific category. It tracks the growth of a particular data set. So what.

What am I failing to see?

[pluvmantelo]

My mobile browser can’t handle the site so could someone tell me if the annual D.C. March for Life events (which receive little, if any, MSM coverage) are included in this data set?

[brityank]

All this shows is what the msm decides to report in a specific category. It tracks the growth of a particular data set. So what.

What am I failing to see?

Ahh. So you do see. My comment was to your posted observation "Totally meaningless." upthread, but as most of us here - and you - know, the abject failing of the MSM has been the omission of activities and facts that do not meet their progressive ideology. This amplifies that, in spades.

[brityank]

If the MSM didn’t cover it, it isn’t in the data set. He has a blog explaining the setup at http://johnbeieler.org/

[pluvmantelo]

Thanks for the info.

[LouD]

Longtime FReepers probably recall that there were demonstrations all over the country in November and December of 2000 when Gore tried to steal the election. We had several in Milwaukee, and I know that was repeated, largely by FReepers, across the country. The Milwaukee events were definitely reported in the media, but none of them show up on the map.