Visualizations
Global protest and the 2011 rupture
The evolution of protest recorded by GDELT and the shift that the literature places in 2011.
Data in preparation. This visualization will be published once the series is downloaded, processed and documented. In the meantime, the page states the intended source and method.
What it shows
The series represents the relative rate of protest recorded by GDELT between 1980 and 2020. Cantoni, Yang, Yuchtman and Zhang argue that the spread of mobile telephony and social media produced a structural break in 2011: protest stopped concentrating in consolidated democracies and grew steadily in autocracies and weak democracies.
How it is calculated
CAMEO 14 (protest) events are normalized by the total volume of apolitical news for the country-year. Normalization is essential: without it, an increase in the number of sources or in media coverage would be mistaken for an increase in protest.
What it does not show
The series does not measure the intensity of repression or freedom of expression. A decline may reflect censorship, not pacification. The 2014 GDELT update introduces a source break that must be treated separately.