The last two posts gave details about trends in media coverage and Google searches about Jena. In this post, I put the two series together to see how they relate.
First, we look at the close-up of coverage and trends in the 40 days around the big protest. The plots in these graphs have been normalized so that the maximum within the time period is set to 100. From top to bottom, the plots are Ethnic NewsWatch, a data source that covers Black newspapers, Factiva, a source that includes international sources and transcripts of television shows, US NewsStream, a source focused on regional and national US news sources, and Google Trends search for the keyword “Jena.” See previous posts for methodological details about each of these searches. What these graphs show: (1) Generally similar patterns of Factiva, US NewsStream, and Google Trends before September 20; (2) Ethnic NewsWatch shows weekly cycles due to weekly publication, has a greater proportion of coverage a week before the rally, peaks a week after the rally, and has more covering continuing into October; (3) Google Trends searching declines more rapidly after September 20 than the mainstream news sources (Factiva, US NewsStream).
Second, we examine trends between May 1 and September 15. The previous posts have shown small bursts of attention in this period. Keep in mind that most of the US NewsStream coverage before mid-August is from Louisiana sources. (See previous posts.) Findings: (1) Small bursts of news coverage in mainstream sources (Factiva and US NewsStream) around May 20, the Bell trial at the end of June, the rally in Jena at the end of July. (2) Black newspaper coverage does not really enter before July, seeming to follow meanstream coverage. (3) All news news sources seem to respond to Al Sharpton’s visit to Jena around August 4, especially Ethnic NewsWatch and US NewsStream. There is no increase in Google searching in this period. (4) No clear impact of early news media bursts on Google trends, except possibly the July 1 spike that may follow the trial coverage, (5) The August 20 rise in Google Trends is not associated with any rise in mainstream news sources and precedes the September rise. (6) All trends show a peak around September 4, the day after Labor Day. Overall, we conclude that the drivers of Google Trends are not the same as the drivers of flurries of news media stories.
