Using Google Trends as a Big Data Tool in Digital Journalism

Year 2024, Volume: 14 Issue: 28, 80 - 105, 30.06.2024

Safa Görkem Aktaş , Mehmet Özçağlayan

Abstract

Big data refers to large volume data sets that emerge with the rapid development of digital technologies today. This data, produced through the internet, social media platforms, mobile devices and other digital sources, accumulates in various formats and at high speed. On the other hand, digital journalism refers to a field in which all processes from news production to distribution are digitalized, which emerged with the adaptation of traditional media to digital platforms. Today, the relationship between big data and digital journalism has become even more evident as news production processes are moved to the digital environment. In this context, the aim of the study is to provide a framework to understand how digital journalism practice changes with the transition from traditional structures to digital technologies and the role of big data in this change. The purpose of the study is to discuss the importance of the use of big data in the field of digital journalism and especially how Google Trends can be evaluated as a big data tool in journalism practice, news reporting and editing process. In line with the purposes of the study, after evaluating the concept of big data, its relationship with search engine-oriented journalism and the aims of Google company, the data presented by Google Trends will be examined within the framework of digital journalism practices. In the context of the information and opinions conveyed, a conclusion emerges that today digital journalism practices cannot be carried out effectively without resorting to big data applications.

Keywords

Information technologies, big data, digital journalism, google trends

Dijital Habercilikte Büyük Veri Aracı Olarak Google Trends Kullanımı

Abstract

Büyük veri, günümüzde dijital teknolojilerin hızla gelişmesiyle ortaya çıkan büyük hacimli veri setlerini ifade etmektedir. İnternet, sosyal medya platformları, mobil cihazlar ve diğer dijital kaynaklar aracılığıyla üretilen bu veriler, çeşitli formatlarda ve yüksek hızda birikmektedir. Dijital habercilik ise geleneksel medyanın dijital platformlara uyarlanmasıyla ortaya çıkan, haber üretiminden dağıtımına kadar tüm süreçlerin dijitalleştiği bir alanı ifade etmektedir. Günümüzde haber üretim süreçlerinin dijital ortama taşınmasıyla birlikte büyük veri ile dijital habercilik arasındaki ilişki daha da belirgin hale gelmiştir. Bu bağlamda çalışmanın amacı, geleneksel yapılardan dijital teknolojilere geçişle birlikte dijital habercilik pratiklerinin nasıl değiştiğini ve bu değişimde büyük verinin rolünü anlamak için bir çerçeve sunmaktır. Çalışmanın bir diğer amacı ise dijital habercilik alanında büyük veri kullanımının önemini ve özellikle Google Trends'in haber oluşturma ve düzenleme sürecinde büyük veri aracı olarak nasıl değerlendirilebileceğini tartışmaktır. Çalışmanın amaçları doğrultusunda büyük veri kavramı, arama motoru odaklı habercilik ile ilişkisi ve Google şirketinin amaçları değerlendirildikten sonra Google Trends'in sunduğu veriler dijital habercilik uygulamaları çerçevesinde incelenecektir. Aktarılan bilgi ve görüşler bağlamında, günümüzde dijital habercilik pratiklerinin büyük veri uygulamalarına başvurmadan etkin bir şekilde yürütülemeyeceği sonucu ortaya çıkmaktadır.

Keywords

Bilgi teknolojileri, büyük veri, dijital habercilik, google trends

References

• Adornato, A. (2021). Mobile and social media journalism: A practical guide for multimedia journalism. Taylor & Francis.
• Alejandro, J. (2010). Journalism in the age of social media. Reuters Institute. Retrieved July 8, 2023, from https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/our-research/journalism-age-social-media
• Alkoç, M. & Sütcü, C.S. (2019). Büyük veri ile foreks algısının Twitter üzerinden gündem belirleme kuramı bağlamında araştırılması. Istanbul Journal of Social Sciences, 25(1), 82-103.
• Ali, A. (2023). What is Google Ads & how does ıt work? A comprehensive guide. Semrush. Retrieved July 8, 2023, from https://www.semrush.com/blog/google-advertising/
• Arora, V. (2023). How Google applies big data to know you. TYB. Retrieved June 20, 2023, from https://tweakyourbiz.com/posts/big-data
• Berry, M. J. & Linoff, G.S. (2000), Mastering data mining: The art and science of customer relationship menagement (Edition 1). John Wiley & Sons.
• Boyd, D. & Crawford, K. (2012). Critical questions for big data. Information, Communication & Society, 15(5), 662–679.
• Bossio, D. (2017). Journalism and social media practitioners, organisations and ınstitutions. Springer International Publishing.
• Campos, L. (2022). A complete guide to data mining and how to use ıt. Hubspot. Retrieved September 30, 2023, from https://blog.hubspot.com/website/data-mining
• Castells, M. (2010). The rise of the network society (2nd Edition). Wiley-Blackwell Publishing.
• Choi, H. & Varian, H. (2012). Predicting the present with Google Trends, Economic Record, 88(1), 2-9.
• Diebold, F.X. (2012). A personal perspective on the origin(s) and development of big data: The phenomenon, the term, and the discipline. SSRN. Retrieved September 28, 2023, from https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2202843
• Dijk, J.V. (2018). Ağ toplumu. (Ö. Sakin, Çev.). Kafka Kitap.
• Duman, K. (2019). Haber kaynağı olarak sosyal ağların kullanımı: Türk internet haber siteleri üzerine bir analiz, Gumushane University e-journal of Faculty of Communication, 7(3), 1637-1654.
• Eravcı Boz, D. (2020). Kurumların dijital dönüşümü: Büyük veri, Çalışma İlişkileri Dergisi, 11(1): 90-112.
• Frampton, B. (2015). Clickbait: The changing face of online journalism. BBC. Retrieved September 1, 2023, from https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-34213693
• Fuchs, C. (2020). Sosyal medya eleştirel bir giriş (D. Saraçoğlu & İ. Kalaycı, Çev.). NotaBene.
• Gandomi, A. & Haider, M. (2015). Beyond the hype: Big data concepts, methods, and analytics, International Journal of Information Management, 35(2), 137-144.
• Google (n.d.). From the garage to the Googleplex [Fact Sheet]. Retrieved July 3, 2023, from https://about.google/our-story/
• Google Privacy & Terms (n.d.). How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services [Fact Sheet]. Retrieved July 5, 2023, from https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites?hl=en-US#
• Google Search Console Help (n.d.). Page ındexing report [Fact Sheet]. Retrieved July 5, 2023, from https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7440203?hl=en
• Google Anlytics Help (n.d.). About real time [Fact Sheet]. Retrieved July 10, 2023, from https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1638635?hl=en#zippy=%2Cin-this-article
• Google Search (n.d.). How results are automatically generated [Fact Sheet]. Retrieved July 10, 2023, from https://www.google.com/intl/en_us/search/howsearchworks/how-search-works/ranking-results/
• Google Knowledge Panel Help (n.d.). How Google’s knowledge graph works [Fact Sheet]. Retrieved July 10, 2023, from https://support.google.com/knowledgepanel/answer/9787176?hl=en
• Google The Keyword (n.d.). The next step toward phasing out third-party cookies in Chrome [Fact Sheet]. Retrieved July 11, 2023, from https://blog.google/products/chrome/privacy-sandbox-tracking-protection/
• Google Search. (n.d.). Our approach to search [Fact Sheet]. Retrieved July 11, 2023, from https://www.google.com/intl/en_us/search/howsearchworks/our-approach/
• Google News Initiative (n.d.). Basics of Google Trends [Fact Sheet]. Retrieved July 11, 2023, from https://newsinitiative.withgoogle.com/en-gb/resources/trainings/google-trends/basics-of-google-trends/#
• Google Trends (n.d.). Google Trends explore [Fact Sheet]. Retrieved July 12, 2023, from https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&hl=en-US
• Gürsakal, N. (2014). Büyük veri (2. Baskı), Dora Yayıncılık
• Han, J., Kamber, M. & Pei, J. (2012). Data mining concepts and techniques (Third Edition). Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.
• Hill, S. & Bradshaw, P. (2018),. Mobile-firs journalism: Producing news for social and interactive media. Taylor & Francis.
• Hotz, N. (2023), What is CRISP DM?. Data Science. Retrieved July 5, 2023, from https://www.datascience-pm.com/crisp-dm-2/
• Kemp, S. (2024), Digital 2024: Global overview report. Wearesocial/Datareportal. Retrieved March 5, 2023, from https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2024-global-overview-report
• Kırık, A.M. (2017). Yeni medya aracılığıyla değişen iletişim süreci: Sosyal paylaşım ağlarında gençlerin rolü. Gumushane University e-journal of Faculty of Communication, 5(1), 230- 261.
• Knight, M. & Cook, C. (2013). Social media for journalist principles and practice. SAGE Publications.
• Knight, M. (2012). Journalism as usual: The use of social media as a newsgathering tool in the coverage of the Iranian elections in 2009. Journal of Media Practice, 13(1), 61-74.
• Koz, K.A. & Işık, U. (2022). İnternet gazeteciliği için kılavuz: Google Trendlerde haber keşfi. The Journal of International Civilization Studies, 7(1), 24-48.
• Lita, R. (2022). A short history of ‘click-bait’ journalism. Aljazeera Media Institute. Retrieved September 8, 2023, from https://institute.aljazeera.net/en/ajr/article/1943
• Lyons, K. (2022). What is Google Trends & how to use it. Semrush. Retrieved October 31, 2023, from https://www.semrush.com/blog/google-trends/
• Marr, B. (2021). How is big data transforming business? Bernard Marr & Co. Retrieved June 24, 2023, from https://bernardmarr.com/how-is-big-data-transforming-business/
• Markova, V., Sukhoviy, O. (2020). Storytelling as a communication tool in journalism: Main stages of development. Journal of History Culture and Art Research, 9(2), 355-366.
• Morozov, E. (2014). The rise of data and the death of politics. The Guardian. Retrieved May 28, 2023, from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/20/rise-of-data-death-of-politics-evgeny-morozov-algorithmic-regulation
• Narin, B., Ayaz, B., Fırat, F. & Fırat, D. (2017). Büyük veri ve gazetecilik ilişkisi bağlamında veri gazeteciliği. AJIT-e: Online Academic Journal of Information Technology, 8(30), 215-235.
• Pavlik, J.V. (2013). Yeni medya ve gazetecilik (M. Demir & B. Kalsın, Çev.). Phoenix Yayınevi.
• Pavlik, V. (2023). 21 best search engines in the world 2023”. Semrush blog. Retrieved June 25, 2024, from https://www.semrush.com/blog/search-engine-list/
• Petrie, L. (2022). The news and social media algorithms: An evaluation of serendipity in the ınfosphere [Unpublished Undergraduate Thesis]. University of Arkansas.
• Reinsel, D., Gantz, J. & Rydning, J. (2018). The digitization of the world from edge to core. Seagate. Retrieved September 29, 2023, from https://www.seagate.com/files/www-content/our-story/trends/files/idc-seagate-dataage-whitepaper.pdf
• Rogers, S. (2016). What is Google Trends data and what does it mean? Medium. Retrieved November 1, 2023, from https://medium.com/google-news-lab/what-is-google-trends-data-and-what-does-it-mean-b48f07342ee8
• Sandelowski, M. (2000). Whatever happened to qualitative description? Research in Nursing & Health, 23(4), 334-340.
• Schroer, A., Whitfield, B. & Oppermann, A. (2022). Big data definition. Builtin. Retrieved July 10, 2023 from https://builtin.com/big-data
• Schönberger, V.M. & Cukier, K. (2013). Big data: A revolution that will transform how we live, work and think. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing
• Smith, T.P. (2013). How big is big and how small is small: The sizes of everything and why (Edition 1). Oxford University Press.
• Taylor, D. (2023). What is dig data? Introduction, types, characteristics, examples. GURU99. Retrieved September 29, 2023, from https://www.guru99.com/what-is-big-data.html
• Timothy (2022). The ımportance of big data analytics at Google . Socializedpr. Retrieved July 3, 2023, from https://www.socializedpr.com/the-importance-of-big-data-analytics-at-google/
• Ültay, E., Akyurt, H. ve Ültay, N. (2021). Sosyal bilimlerde betimsel içerik analizi. IBAD Journal of Social Sciences, (10), 188-201.
• Vermeire, L. (2017). A culture of clicks. Medium. Retrieved September 10, 2023 from https://medium.com/journalism-trends-technologies/a-culture-of-clicks-58719857b934
• Walden, H. (2023). What is cornerstone content and why is it so important? Elegant Themes. Retrieved November 1, 2023, https://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/wordpress/what-is-cornerstone-content-and-why-is-it-so-important
• Wilson, Y. (2019). The social media journalist handbook (Firs Edition). Taylor & Francis.
• Yıldırım, A. & Şimşek, H. (2013). Sosyal bilimlerde nitel araştırma yöntemleri. Seçkin Yayıncılık
• Zehir Topkaya, E. (2006). Sosyal bilimlerde nitel araştırma yöntemleri güncelleştirilmiş 5. Baskı, Eğitimde Kuram ve Uygulama, 2(2), 113-118.
• Zhong, B. (2021). Social media communication trends and theories. John Wiley & Sons.