Linking event archives to news: a computational method for analyzing the gatekeeping process. Issue 1 (2nd January 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Welbers, Kasper; Van Atteveldt, Wouter; Bajjalieh, Joe; Shalmon, Dan; Joshi, Pradnyesh Vineet; Althaus, Scott; Chan, Chung-Hong; Wessler, Hartmut; Jungblut, Marc
• Is Part Of: Communication methods and measures. Volume 16:Issue 1(2022)
• Page Start: 59
• Page End: 78
• Publication Date: 2022-01-02
• Subjects: Communication -- Methodology -- Periodicals; Communication -- Research -- Periodicals; Communication -- Study and teaching -- Periodicals; 302.2072
• DOI: 10.1080/19312458.2021.1953455
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1931-2458

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Digital archives that document real-world events provide new opportunities for large-scale analyses of how news coverage represents reality. We present a method and open-source tool for linking event data to news articles, and demonstrate its application with an analysis of event and country level predictors of terrorism coverage in The Guardian from 2006 to 2018, using event data from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD). Our method builds on established techniques for calculating document similarity, and we propose a novel strategy for fine-tuning parameters of the event matching algorithm that requires no manual coding. An online appendix is provided that documents all code to replicate our analysis and reuse our tools.