turning participation in online debate into content and navigation

As part of the BBC’s White Season, a week of programmes on BBC2 as well as other BBC TV and Radio outlets, BBC News online hosted an online discussion asking if "white working class people [are] ignored in Britain?"

The first 4183 of the resulting 7000+ comments were then run through a visualiser that makes it possible to see clusters of comments based on emotions shown, intensity of emotion, intesity of feeling, region of participant, and level of agreement. The interface allows users to then filter those results or drill down into them to the level of individual comments:

Visualisingracedebate

It’s a nice example of how data generated by online behaviour centred on news or current affairs discussion can itself become compelling content. The pattern grouping also make for useful navigation elements. Max Gadney provides more information about the project on the BBC Internet Editors Blog….

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