Media Monitoring and Analytics: not for brands but for DV research?
May 14, 2021 6:21 PM Subscribe
(Asking for Ms. Spike)
There are companies that brands can hire that monitor the media for mentions of issues that concern them. Does the same thing exist for research? In need of a service that will report anytime there's a domestic violence homicide in our state.
My wife works for a non-profit in the domestic violence movement, and part of her job is writing an annual report that goes into granular deatail of every domestic violence homicide in our state. Aside from the Uniform Crime Report, much of the information she gathers is seeded from media reports of domestic violence homicides. From there, she'll reach out to local law enforcement agencies for more information.
While the UCR aggregates data, it's often insufficient to properly classify homicides as a resultant of domestic violence, and a large portion of my wife's time is taken up by scouring various news sources to generate investigative leads with which she can further steer her investigative journey on each death.
There are services out there (often referred to as "media monitoring") that will scour the web for mentions of their clients concerns and report back. Does such a thing exist for the research community?
My wife works for a non-profit in the domestic violence movement, and part of her job is writing an annual report that goes into granular deatail of every domestic violence homicide in our state. Aside from the Uniform Crime Report, much of the information she gathers is seeded from media reports of domestic violence homicides. From there, she'll reach out to local law enforcement agencies for more information.
While the UCR aggregates data, it's often insufficient to properly classify homicides as a resultant of domestic violence, and a large portion of my wife's time is taken up by scouring various news sources to generate investigative leads with which she can further steer her investigative journey on each death.
There are services out there (often referred to as "media monitoring") that will scour the web for mentions of their clients concerns and report back. Does such a thing exist for the research community?
Back in the 1980s, my wife had a side hustle clipping newspaper articles on a particular topic for a manager in Fortune 500 company. It was a private arrangement.
All sorts of newsletters exist for a similar purpose.
posted by SemiSalt at 2:35 PM on May 15, 2021
All sorts of newsletters exist for a similar purpose.
posted by SemiSalt at 2:35 PM on May 15, 2021
I work for a DV agency in New Mexico, and we get a yearly in-depth report about all the various DV statistics in our state. It’s called the Caponera report, after the woman who does the research and creates it, Betty Caponera, PhD. My suggestion is that you contact our state DV coalition and ask them how to contact her, so you can ask her how she gathers her info. The coalition’s website is NMCADV.org.
We are a sparsely populated state, so people have the time to help and are generally pleased to be able to assist you when you contact them. But if you run into any difficulties, MeMail me and I’ll ask my boss, as she’s the president of the coalition’s Board of Directors.
posted by MexicanYenta at 5:28 PM on May 15, 2021
We are a sparsely populated state, so people have the time to help and are generally pleased to be able to assist you when you contact them. But if you run into any difficulties, MeMail me and I’ll ask my boss, as she’s the president of the coalition’s Board of Directors.
posted by MexicanYenta at 5:28 PM on May 15, 2021
Also, there’s a woman for whom keeping track of femicides is a personal mission. She has databases that you can access. I wouldn’t assume they’re complete, and I would do my own research on anything she has listed, but she might have some listed that you(r wife) might not find on her own.
Womencountusa.org/the-databases. Scroll down for the current year.
posted by MexicanYenta at 5:36 PM on May 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
Womencountusa.org/the-databases. Scroll down for the current year.
posted by MexicanYenta at 5:36 PM on May 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
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I've found a couple of ways to try to work around this but it really depends on the scope of the search - if it's super broad/common search terms for a huge swatch of news I think this is going to be tough. If you're monitoring more unique sets of terms or keywords in specific locations or news outlets it will be a lot easier.
Most of the media monitoring platforms that are sold for commercial purposes just run on sets of keywords, so they should work ok for research topics as well as brands unless the issue is just the cost of a platform like Meltwater or Cision.
Journalists Toolbox has tons of great resources for search
Learning how to code in Python can be helpful for these types of searches. Here's one tutorial and I've known people who've used other Python-based tools to scrape sets of specific news sites.
LexisNexis News search may be another good option that may be available free through a public library system in your state. You may also want to search around and see if you can get a discounted rate, here's an example of a group for freelance journalists.
If you know anyone affiliated with a university they can set up a keyword/location limited search in something like LexisNexis or ProQuest News through their university library system and have the resulting daily email forwarded.
I'm assuming you're looking specifically for media reports but if you're trying to track just the incidents you might want to use something like the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) or your state's department of justice office that handles domestic violence data collection.
posted by forkisbetter at 8:55 AM on May 15, 2021 [1 favorite]