Every once in a while, I check Google labs and see what they have new and interesting. One of my favorites is google trends, where you search for a specific concept, person or keyword and find out the trends that this word has been searched online. What I really like about this is that it also gives you the peak points of search and news deadlines about this at that time.
So, here is something interesting, check this out: http://trends.google.com/trends?q=amartya+sen&date=all&geo=all&ctab=0&sort=0&sa=N
This graph shows the frequency of searches for Amartya Sen in Google (upper level), and also the frequency that he appeared in the news (lower level). (BTW, keep in mind that he won Nobel prize in economics in 1998.). Obviously, the searches have ups and downs over time until today, but the peak is late 2003, then a sharp decline in 2004. Interestingly, the lower level in the graph ( the frequency he appeared in the news) does not necessarily correspond to the public concern to his approach – it is way less than total searches on his name. In other words, it took media for a while to take him seriously whereas the internet users already ‘knew’ him. One possibility is that he is Indian and this region was the one he was searched most (Maybe an ingroup bias for Indians). However, when you look at the languages, you will see that it was not Hindi or English that had the most hits, but Italian and Spanish websites. It seems like google trends show how Sen became ‘globalized’ in 2000s, first in India, and then in Europe.
You may ask: Why bother posting this here?
Well, I think it shows that we can ‘google’ how ideas diffuse in the www and we have access to this information as lay people. Information is not restricted to researchers (i.e. demographers), but to everyone.
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Gizem I liked this a lot!!!! By the way your comment at the bottom is very interesting, however, I do not have a comment for it right now. I will though, I just need some time to marinate on that!
ReplyDeleteYou know what would be fascinating? If google trends were to be combined with google scholar, we could see the research trend vs. trends in media vs. search hits by the public. My guess is lay people knew Sen way before he appeared in media, UN, and academic papers!
ReplyDeleteI found something else!
ReplyDeletehttp://trends.google.com/trends?q=amartya+sen&ctab=0&geo=us&geor=all&date=all&sort=0
I narrowed it down to US, and most of the hits are in Spanish websites! This paralels the trends in overall searches, most were in third world countries (India, Peru, Cambocia etc.). In US, possibly, it is minorities (may be Hispanics?) who are searching for his ideas...