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Network Analysis with Cytoscape
The objective of this practicum was to create visualizations in Cytoscape that allow us to analyze and compare the relationships between law enforcement agencies and the race of the deceased in 2015 and 2016. Going into the assignment, I expected to see which demographic groups were most frequently targeted, and whether certain agencies were disproprtionately…
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Using Cytoscape to Visualize Police Shootings
This blog post is a review of my experience using the data visualization tool Cytoscape to map out police shootings across the United States. I found the Cytoscape visualization tool rather unsatisfying for analysis. It lacks the contextual data to draw rigorous conclusions, nor provides sufficient levels of clustering to generate much new insight.…
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Textual Analysis of LBJ and Barry Goldwater’s Convention Speeches
I chose to analyze Barry Goldwater and President Lyndon Johnson’s convention speeches using Voyant’s text analysis tools. This election has fascinated me because it portrays two radically different visions of American politics but whose candidates are remembered for different reasons. Comparing these two speeches makes these differences all the more…
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Making Sense of Election 2016 & Digital Political Communication
Hi all, Last week I attended the conference “Making Sense of Election 2016,” which was organized by the Aggie Agora team and the Texas A&M University. The meeting included relevant keynote speakers in the fields of political science and communication, such as Julia Azari, Daniel Kreiss, John Murphy, and Jennifer Stromer-Galley. The main idea of…
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Social (Media, Justice, Both?)
Social media – a concept that has consumed our lives. This mode of communication has become the hub for long-distance connections, news, and political conversations. We have talked in class about collaboration, and social media allows people who may have never been able to get involved with movements to contribute something whether it is expertise, opinions, money, or other…
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Crowdsourcing Celebrities
This article focuses on the massive donations received by the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) following Trump’s executive order on immigration. The ACLU received $24 million in online donations in under 48 hours following the announcements, compared to “the $7.2 million the organization received five days following Trump’s election.” The amount is also reportedly six…
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Social Media and Social Justice
The recent spate of police violence stories has been credited to the proliferation of smartphone cameras uncovering examples of excessive force. What is missing from that equation is the role of social media. Being able to record the event is not enough. The death of Eric Garner serves as an example where video…
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Fairy Princess or Doctor, or Both?
A new study has recently been published revealing that youngs girls ages 6-7 do not believe that women are able to be as smart and successful as men. Found here, the article discussing this topic explains how the study went about and it’s quite interesting how it played out. Apparently, at the ages of 5,…
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Affirming Core Values of HASTAC and the Futures Initiative
Dear friends of HASTAC and the Futures Initiative, We write today to reaffirm our core values of intellectual freedom and education as a public good, and to invite you, our members, to use these two networks, HASTAC and the Futures Initiative, to fight for those values, especially at this time when they are being severely…
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Kiva: Using Crowd Sourcing to Serve the Underbanked
I chose to support non-profit micro lender Kiva by participating in a syndicated loan. The recipient, Milka, is a Kenyan corn farmer and mother of four who was looking to expand her farming operation buy purchasing hybrid seed corn, fertilizer and a solar lamp. https://www.kiva.org/lend/1214525 There are two primary reasons I chose this effort. I…