Map Keys

Curious about the Presidential Watch ‘08 map? Here are some answers to the most common questions asked:

I. Drawing the map

The PresidentialWatch08 map is composed of the 533 most visible and influential websites and blogs - out of a complete dataset of over 4000 sites - using Linkfluence™’s proprietary crawl technology.

The map includes both social media and mainstream media outlets. The sites are divided into four different categories, or communities (manually labelled):

  • Conservative
  • Independent
  • Infopit
  • Progressive

Infopit are conversation starters, they can set the agenda. Most of them are mainstream media but a growing part is composed by social media.

In terms of methodology, we initiated the process by focusing on a set of a few hundred websites and blogs well-recognized by search engines and other sites related to US politics. Then, we collected the URLs of all sites located just one click away from our initial set - which amounted to tens of thousands of websites.

Why was this step important? Because when it comes to networks – and the web is one giant network – there’s a rule that says that what’s similar to a given node in terms of content will stand close to this node in terms of location. Working with a set of websites large enough, one can collect all the other important websites dealing with the same topics using the “one click removed” idea.

Thanks to a series of metrics, both topology-related (i.e. how many sites link to a particular site) and semantics-related (i.e. are the words used of political nature), we were able to single out over 4,000 websites that constitute the core of the US political webosphere. From these, we extracted the most link-relevant 533 sites.

II. Navigating the map

The PW08 map’s default view is set to display all the categories at once (Conservative, Independent, Infopit, Progressive). You can select the individual communities you’re interested in and more carefully analyze the links existing between them - most notable to see who links to whom, and what their level of authority is within their community.See the notice for more practical details on map navigation.

III. Understanding the map

As shown in the map’s navigation bar, a node’s color indicates the community it belongs to, and a node’s size indicates its authority degree (overall number of inbound links) or its Xeno degree (number of inbound links coming from nodes belonging to other categories).

The more links a node receives from other nodes shown on the map, the bigger it appears on the map. Note that the link count is based solely upon links coming from nodes on the map. Links coming from websites located outside of the map are excluded. Based on this approach, we can determine the level of authority attributed to a given site within these communities. This approach may occasionally favor bloggers who splog (spam-blog) others, artificially generating inbound links to their blogs by an abusive use of such techniques as trackbacks. Given the size of the map’s set of websites, we were able to make sure such artificial results were not present.

Nodes are positioned on the map according to a topological placement algorithm, i.e. each node is positioned solely according to its linking pattern, without consideration for the stated political affiliation of the site or its content.

Many algorithms make possible for a 2D rendering of an adjacent matrix - i.e. the matrix describing any graph. We used a Fruchterman Rheingold algorithm, which shares with all the others the same basic principle: minimizing the system’s energy while maximizing the use of the space available for the representation of the data. To minimize the system’s energy, one can for instance assume that nodes that are not linked to each other are pushing away from each other whereas nodes that are linked to each other are attracting each other. Through iterative steps the algorithm tries to find a way to position nodes where there is as little link overlap as possible. To maximize the use of the mapped space, the graph is spread as much as possible over the surface allocated for its display.

These positioning principles call for the following reading conventions:

  • A site’s position on the map depends solely upon its linking policy. A node has no predefined position, the latter being the result of the relations it has with other nodes. This means that a node with no links at all cannot be positioned on the map, which is why we excluded such websites from the PW08 map;
  • North, East, South and West don’t matter. The displayed space is not based on the cardinal system (North, East, South, West), which means that the choice of a relative left-right or top-down position is purely arbitrary. Overall, we chose to respect the obvious left-right political axis. The further left you look, the more liberal the site. The further right, the more conservative;
  • Hubs are center-stage. The displayed space is polarized in a center to periphery tension. The nodes positioned at the center are the ones receiving the most links from other nodes that don’t link much to one another (exogamous nodes). The nodes positioned at the periphery receive fewer links but they receive them from other nodes that tend to link to one another (endogamous nodes). For instance, the PW08 map clearly shows the pivotal position held by the infopit, the sites which set the agenda, which are conversation starter, receiving links from sites pertaining to all the other communities;
  • It’s not size, it’s density. The map shouldn’t be interpreted with respect to the surface occupied by a given community or subset of nodes. Rather it should be construed with respect to density levels. For instance, two communities may stretch over equally-sized surfaces, with one forming a tight-knit community and the other being looser-knit. An online territory can be occupied by few sites with few links, thus showing a low density level; it can also be occupied by many sites with many links, thus showing a high density level. On the map the “strength” of a community can be inferred from its density and the thickness of the web woven by its nodes. For instance, a zone with a low density level spreading over a large surface should be construed as containing sites with hardly any links to sites in other communities, links being made between nodes within this community (hypertextual endogamy)

That’s it. Now you can navigate inside the PW08 map and analyze in detail the relations between sites and communities.

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