Description

The analysis of Contropedia permits to discover what are the most controversial words on a Wikipedia page and when the page was modified through time. The page “Islamic State of Iraq and Levant” was opened in 2007 and until 2013 there have been only 20 changes. Starting with 2014, the amount of changes grows quickly and considerably, as a continuous stream, with more than 2.700 changes. Given these considerations, the visualization shows the analysis of this second period of time: from 2014 to 2016. In particular, there is a big difference in the amount of changes occurred in the “Abstract” section and in the other sections, so these are visualized separately with two different scales.

In the visualization shown above, the activity in the “Abstract” section is analysed by most changed words, which are ordered alphabetically. As a term of comparison, the number of changes in the other sections are shown beneath the abstract bar.

Autoproclamation Origins Abu bakr al-baghdadi abu musab al-zarqawi al-nusra front al-qaeda amnesty international caliph Caliphate european union iraq islamic state jihadism khawarij levant list of active rebel groups list of designated terrorist organizations mosul muslim syria syrian civil war united nations Analysis Conventional weapons Finances Notable members See also Territorial control Criticism Religious persecution Goals Timeline Name Foreign affairs Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi 56 Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi 51 Al-Nusra Front 93 Al-Qaeda 77 Amnesty International 47 Caliph 80 Caliphate 88 European Union 60 Iraq 43 Islamic State 48 Jihadism 35 Khawarij 52 Levant 44 List of Active Rebel Groups 8 List of Designated Terrorist Organizations 7 Mosul 97 Muslim 15 Syria 30 Syrian Civil War 25 United Nations 13 al-nusra front 93 Caliphate 88 caliph 80 Abu bakr al-baghdadi 56 abu musab al-zarqawi 51 al-qaeda 77 amnesty international 47 european union 60 iraq 43 jihadism 35 khawarij 52 levant 44 list of active rebel groups 8 list of designated terrorist organizations 7 mosul 97 muslim 15 syria 30 syrian civil war 25 united nations 13 islamic state 48 analysis 6 conventional weapons 10 events 98 finances 5 foreign affairs 111 goals 125 name 95 notable members 27 origins 37 religious persecution 132 see also 11 territorial control 8 autoproclamation 163 criticism 141 MOST EDITED WORDS OTHER SECTIONS Autoproclamation 163 Criticism 141 Religious persecution 132 Goals 125 Foreign affairs 111 Timeline 98 Name 95 Origins 37 Notable members 27 See also 11 Conventional weapons 10 Territorial control 8 Analysis 6 Finances 5

In this second visualization, only the “other sections” are analyzed. Sections, on the left hand side, and most edited words, on the right hand side, are ordered by decreasing number of changes. Flows connect the most edited words for each category and their size indicates the number of changes of the word in a specific section.

For both visualizations, we can infer that a high number of modified terms happen to be words related to religion or terrorism. A lot of changes also concern the removal of vandalistic acts towards religion beliefs or ethnic groups.

Protocol

The analysis on Contropedia includes all the activity on the page since it was opened in 2007 until December 6th, 2016. The most controversial words and sections were identified and data was manually transcribed into an Excel file. This allows to detect what people on the Internet want to know about the IS, including what are the most controversial and debated words and the most targeted terms by vandalism. The protocol was repeated in three different periods (2007-2008, 2009-2013, 2014-2016) in order to verify is the debate around ISIS is evolving in time with a strict correlation to the terrorist attacks.

Data

Timestamp: 07/12/2016 - 10/12/2016

Data source: Contropedia

Download data

The data was collected into an Excel file that organizes all the changes, by section and by word. There are three different sheets corresponding to the three time periods.