Entry Date:
November 7, 2012

Controversy Mapper

Principal Investigator Ethan Zuckerman


How does a media controversy become the only thing any of us are talking about? Using the Media Cloud platform, we're reverse-engineering major news stories to visualize how ideas spread, how media frames change over time, and whose voices dominate a discussion. We've started with a case study of Trayvon Martin, a teenager who was shot and killed. His story became major national news...weeks after his death. Analysis of stories like Trayvon's provide a revealing portrait of our complicated media ecosystem.