Art in the Press, Conspiracy Theories, Urban Water Systems: See How Universities are Using TDM

Last October, ProQuest put out a call. “Have a great research idea that needs text and data mining?” we asked via social media and email. “Now’s your chance to make it happen.”

We asked universities to submit their text and data mining (TDM) project ideas to our Digital Research Support Program in which – if selected – they’d earn six months free access to TDM Studio, ProQuest’s powerful TDM solution. This program was open to any research team at academic institutions around the world.

The volume of submissions was amazing, and today, we’d like to congratulate the six research teams who were awarded access at the beginning of 2021 and are well on their way to discovering new insights. We’re looking forward to sharing the outcomes once these projects are complete – but in the meantime here is a brief summary of their ongoing projects.

Vanderbilt University
History of Art and Architecture
Primary Researcher: Rebecca VanDiver

This project, “African American Art Coverage in the Black Press,” turns attention to the role of the Black press in narrating a history of 20th-century African American visual art. The team will chart how the discourse of African American art unfolded on the pages of the Black press – looking for mentions of artists, art exhibitions, and other forms of visual arts related news coverage. Using word frequency and topic modelling, the data will be charted and analyzed against mainstream press coverage.

University of Missouri
Information Science and Learning Technologies
Primary Researcher: Hyerim Cho

This research team is investigating using published reviews of fiction to investigate emotional reactions toward, and/or emotions depicted in, works of fiction. The ProQuest data is providing the basis for a proof of concept. They are using a text-mining methodology to compare emotion in book reviews to information in library cataloging records to improve access to fiction with enhanced catalog records.

University of Miami
English
Primary Researcher: John Funchion

Using rich historical, socio-cultural and formal textual content analysis, this project will examine newspaper content that will assist with a larger study of conspiracy theory belief spread. The team will build a taxonomy of textual and visual patterns of misinformation and conspiracy theories, elucidating how narrative architectures, manipulative tropes, and visual content of conspiratorial messages resonate with susceptible individuals.

Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona, Spain)
Economics
Primary Researcher: Marta Reyna-Querol

This project is studying the socio-cultural evolution of U.S. society using information from newspaper sources. The project will extend the analysis of cultural divisions in the American society in Desmet and Wacziarg (2020) by studying the temporal dynamics of its cultural divide from the middle of the nineteenth century to the present time.

University of California Santa Barbara
Psychology, Data Science, Computer Science, Engineering, Education
Primary Researcher: Sharon Tettegah

This project aims to explore how particular media have presented information on the various aspects of domestic violence. The team is developing a series of computational models and exploring content that would afford a more systematic study of domestic violence before, during and after natural disasters and pandemics. They’ll investigate the increase or decrease of studies over time. Understanding who, what and where could provide us with the necessary knowledge to possibly provide information that would inform intervention before, during and after a natural disaster or pandemic.

University of Nevada-Reno
Political Science
Primary Researcher: Elizabeth Koebele

This team will use TDM Studio to study how urban water supply systems can proactively transition to more sustainable management practices under conditions of climate change and other social stressors. While these systems are designed to be adaptable to a wide range of conditions, climatic and social shifts are placing new stresses on water-supply systems that require substantial changes to maintain performance. This research analyzes these substantial changes across 16 large-scale urban water systems in the United States to achieve two goals: better document the interactions among various environmental and human factors that may prompt transition, and identify which infrastructure and policy design choices can best achieve sustainability goals.

Explore TDM Studio at Your University

These projects demonstrate how TDM Studio can be used across disciplines and with different types of content, from book reviews to newspapers and more. Do you want to gain insights from a wealth of previously inaccessible content and bring broad data science literacy to your university? TDM Studio may be the ideal solution.

Make career-defining discoveries by finding undiscovered patterns and connections in content like newspapers, dissertations, scholarly journals and primary sources. Visualize your results, connect with team members and more.

Learn more: https://about.proquest.com/products-services/TDM-Studio.html.

Interested in a free 30-Day Trial of TDM Studio? Email TDM_Studio@proquest.com.