Introduction
After analyzing who the speakers are, giving an overview of names, jobs and other profile information, this chapter deeper examines what the different speakers from the academic world think about electronic mass surveillance. Coherently with the previous research (see protocol in chapter 02) also the debate among academics is about how much and why mass surveillance practicies are wrong, so it is interesting to analyze the different aspects of the issue. The chapter presents two different visualizations. The first one is an alluvial diagram focusing on the relations between the field of studies/point of view of the speakers, their opinions about the topics and the possible solution they gives to make the situation turning better. The second visualization deeper analyzes the keywords used from the speakers with the same opinion and shows a comparison between them. Summarizing the research query used in this step is "how the debate develops in the academic world and which are the main actors".
How to read the visualization
On the first row there are the different points of view from which the authors speak, in the one below are the main opinions and in the last one the poposals. The lenght of the bars represents how many papers have that tag, the total on every row is 55 (100% of the selected ones), so each document can only have one label. The reading order goes from the top to the deep end and it is possible to select a single cluster by passing the mouse over the curves, for a better reading.
ABOUT THE CLUSTERS MEANING
-Pro surveillance (pro surv.): those who are totally in favour of electronic surveillance.
-Surveillance is necessary: in favour of surveillance, that is necessary to mantain safety, but present practicies and laws have something wrong.
-Surveillance practicies are illegal: those who are not totally against surveillance but they assert surveilance practicies are not legal.
-Against surveillance: electronic surveillance is totally wrong, it is not only illegal but also a challenge to human rights and democracy. It is wrong under any aspects.
-No position: those who do not express an opinion about the issue.
How it has been done
The specific dataset was built by reading the 55 selected papers and giving specific tags. The documents were then clustered into more generic categories and finally Google Refine was used to adjust the dataset. The alluvial diagram was created using app.raw.densitydesign.org. The .svg file was downloaded and modified with Adobe Illustrator. The final .svg file of the visualization was then inserted in a .html file and interactions were added.
keywords and actors
How to read the visualization
Aim of the visualization is to show how the speakers of the four main "opinion" clusters deal with the topic and which actors emerge. The cluster "in favour of surveillance" has been omitted because only one paper on 55 is actually in favour of mass surveillance, and it is not comparable with the other categories. The 10 most frequently keywords are compared and splitted in two groups: generic words about mass surveillance, not specific of the academic field, and words used to give a specific orientation to the paper.
How it has been done
The dataset was building after collecting the keywords of each paper. In almost each document there are keywords given by the author, in few case we had to find the keywords by reading the whole paper. At least four keywords per paper were collected, adjusted and counted. The histogram only represent the ten most frenquent words for each cluster.
Findings
Most of the authors discuss the topic from a legislative/constitutional point of view, generally speaking a part of them considers mass surveillance as necessary for the national security but recognises there is something wrong , another part thinks mass surveillance is illegal expecially speaking about United States Constitution. In the academic field the debate is also about "how to solve it". Most of the speakers finish the paper with a proposal to solve the actual situation.The main debate in this case is among those who assert laws and rules have to be changed, those who think it is not a legislative matter but surveillance practicies have to be improved and shaped, and those who shift the debate on how to evade the "big eye", so the only possibility is to try not to be monitored. The last smaller group represents speakers asserting transparency will be the solution, people should know what the governments are planning and that will be enough. The clusters "changing or making new laws" and "reviewing surveillance practicies" are both about changing the institutions and what is behind the mass surveillance (government/secret services), while who asks for more transparency and the cluster "evading intrusions" sustain internet users should be able to choose among privacy and security. In brief the debate consists of opinions and ways of thinking distinguished by small hints. If bigger clusters should be made in the first visualization, on the "how to get off the actual situation" row the first would be "operating on institutions and authorities" and the second one "giving the necessary knowledge to users". Speaking about keywords and actors, the second visualization highlights that some keywords are common to all the speakers while some others are used to give the paper a specific orientation, such as constitutional amendments or expressions like "expectation", "distrust" or "resistance". Following this step the reaserch moved to the analysis of the references of the papers, to find others actors and links between the speakers. For this phase see chapter three.
