Trend spotting with NLA Clipshare

The wealth of publicly available data accessible online is an increasingly important source for insightful journalism, as readers of The Guardian’s datablog, the Daily Mirror’s Ampp3d and other data led news websites will know.

NLA media access is a contributor to this trend.  Regular readers of this blog will have already heard, for example, about the launch of our Article Impact Measurement (AIM) tool for Media Monitoring Organisations and their PR industry clients last month. 

But if you are a journalist using the NLA research service Clipsearch (www.clipsearch.co.uk) to review our database of national and regional newspaper articles you may not be aware that this tool can be used for data gathering and trend spotting too.  By looking at changes in volume month on month you can spot trends in reportage, the emergence of new buzzwords and coverage of topical issues rising and falling over time all the way back to 2006.

Take this example from Raziye Akkoc at the Daily Telegraph.  She uses NLA Clipshare (the sister service widely used by journalists on national titles) to chart the increase in stories about immigration, demonstrating that it is a hotly debated topic in print media which has doubled in mentions since the same time last year.  Over the coming months NLA media access will be demonstrating on this blog some examples of how data can be used, drawing on our growing repertoire of print and online content from publishers.