Social Zeitgeist Radar (Round 3)
Summary
Social Zeitgeist Radar is an online tool that helps journalists escape social media filter bubbles. The tool analyses social media and detects user clusters and their discussion topics. It then provides an interactive graphical representation of the information flow between the user clusters and journalists. This visual summary allows journalists to immediately spot gaps in their coverage. The tool then helps make better decisions about how to fill the gaps by suggesting best starting points for further investigation.
The solution
Social media is a major source of information about what is happening in the world today. However, it is hard for journalists to be sure that they are following all the significant viewpoints due to the filter bubble effect. The Social Zeitgeist Radar will help journalists to escape filter bubbles by making it easy to spot gaps in their coverage. The project does it by using the recommendation system algorithms in a non-tradition way. Instead of recommending individual items it shows a visual overview of information flow from the user and topic clusters to the journalists.