Period: 2008-2010
We collaborate with the Cline Center’s project on developing the Social, Political, and Economic Events Database (SPEED). SPEED is based on an archive of over 25M news reports translated from over 75 languages and derived from tens of thousands of news outlets throughout the world; it extends from January 1, 1946 into the indefinite future. The goal is to develop automated methods to identify, classify and extract information from events that belong to over 250 categories.
We are interested in events that: 1) yield insights into the operation and evolution of key national institutions (economic, legal and political; both formal and informal aspects); 2) capture key aspects of the contexts within which those institutions operate (demographic and socio-cultural environment, governmental stability, exogenous shocks); and 3) provide the basis for constructing key indicators of human welfare (human rights, civil turmoil, and terrorism). Information on each event will be extracted from news reports, including time and place markers. The result of this extraction procedure will be an integrated "day file" containing a wide range of variables on an encompassing set of geo-coded events for each day since 1946.
College of Education: http://education.illinois.edu
Psychology Department: http://www.psych.uiuc.edu
Political Science Department, Cline Center for Democracy: http://www.clinecenter.uiuc.edu