Description

Translation Device: How much were issues concerning the LGBTQIA+ community discussed on the New York Times in one year
Code: https://editor.p5js.org/mlinhle617/sketches/j1SliORgQ

Description: The translation device shows how much issues concerning the LGBTQIA+ community are discussed in The New York Times in a year, including both general articles and articles specifically about hate crimes against the community. The program searches for articles with the keyword "LGBTQIA+" and "anti-LGBT hate crimes" in the New York Times when users enter a year in the input field. The more articles about the community there is, the more opaque the rainbow will look. The articles about hate crimes are presented by the black stripes running over the rainbow. API Source: ttps://developer.nytimes.com/apis

Design Process

My three initial ideas for the translation device include:
1. Visualizing the climate change data in Vietnam and show how the data about its effect on women and children are missing

2. Show how much issues concerning the LGBTQIA+ community are discussed in The New York Times in a year, including both general articles and articles specifically about hate crimes against the community

3. Display the books in the New York Times’ bestseller lists and show how the info about why a book is on the list is missing

Feminist Data Reference

The translation device follows the feminist data principle “Examine Power”. The media has the power to direct people’s attention towards or away from an issue, which is immensely powerful. With that in mind, I want to look into how much the New York Times discusses issues concerning the LGBTQIA+ community and hate crimes against the community, and by doing so, examine the power of the media to make certain issue and communities disappear form the public’s eyes by not reporting them.

Reflection

Working with API is quite difficult especially when figuring out how to make the query work with user input. It’s a topic that is a bit time-consuming to learn so I was impatient at first and tried to follow tutorials online without really understanding how things work. I had to take a break from the project and dive into several lectures about API on YouTube. Once I got a good understanding of what I’m doing, I was able to finish the project.