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DHS
DHS is funding overseas media analysis. No big deal. |
On Oct. 4,
Eric Lipton of the New York Times wrote about
Software Being Developed to Monitor Opinions of U.S. Basically, the Dept. of Homeland Security is funding a program to use
natural language processing to gauge which overseas coverage of critical U.S. policy issues (such as the war on terrorism) is positive, negative, or neutral. The $2.4 million, three-year grant is funding work at several major U.S. universities.
According to the Times, some people, including Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, call this effort "just creepy and Orwellian."
Yeah, it is. However, it's not particularly unusual -- and personally I don't find it sinister, either.
Reality check: Every major organization in the world -- and a lot of minor ones -- analyzes media coverage. This goes by names such as "reputation management," and it has its roots in press clipping services. They're just using computers to give all the clippings an initial read for guidance to the overall flavor of the "buzz." They are as free to analyze news coverage as we are to publish news, and I see nothing nefarious about that.
Today, companies like BuzzLogic and Umbria offer tools and services mainly for corporations that wish to conduct similar analyses. Frankly, I'd be amazed if any major government agency wasn't using such tools.
The catch is, of course, "overseas." In the age of online publishing, I think that term has become largely meaningless. Stories from U.S. news organizations routinely get syndicated to non-U.S. venues. Also, if you're monitoring news transmitted via, say, Google News India, or even a router in Sao Paulo, Brazil, could that content be considered "overseas coverage?" Maybe, if you really, really wanted to stretch the definition.
However, I doubt this sort of analysis will prove as useful as DHS hopes -- mainly because the issues involved at the international affairs level are so complex. With an issue such as, say, detention of "noncombatants" at Guantanamo, individuals are likely to hold different and even conflicting opinions about different aspects of that issue, and all its interrelated issues. If you can't sort that out easily for an individual, trying to do that for a mass media audience is bound to be so error-prone as to be virtually useless.
Furthermore, there's likely to be a wide gap between the mainstream media's "sentiment" and that of various communities in the audience. So assessing media coverage probably won't really tell you much about what "people" really think -- just about what they're hearing.
Still, there are worse things DHS can -- and does -- waste my money on. Despite the row some privacy advocates are raising on this issue, I'm not bothered much by this.
What about you? Please comment below.
(Thanks to Media Bloodhound for the tip, even though I disagree with their view.)
