Inferring public interest from search engine data requires caution

Correia, Ricardo A.; Minin, Enrico Di; Jarić, Ivan; Jepson, Paul; Ladle, Richard J.; Mittermeier, John C.; Veríssimo, Diogo

doi:10.1002/fee.2048

Cited by 29 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…However, biodiversity datasets have typically been narrowly focused on taxonomic and ecological data, leading Hardisty and Roberts () to urge conservationists to adopt a more holistic, whole system approach that takes ‘biodiversity science far beyond a collection of taxon names’. We would argue that our webpage‐based metric of cultural salience of species could contribute to such a ‘whole system’ approach, as could a diverse range of other culturomics‐derived metrics (Correia et al, ). Indeed, recent studies have demonstrated the utility of culturomic approaches for quantifying and monitoring trade in endangered species via information on social media sites (Di Minin, Fink, Tenkanen, & Hiippala, ; Di Minin, Tenkanen, & Toivonen, ) and the enormous potential of user generated data (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A culturomics approach to quantifying the salience of species on the global internet

et al. 2019

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1. Conservation will only be successful over the long term if people support conservation goals. While many factors may influence the level of such support, it is clear that people are more willing to conserve species and places that they are familiar with and which provide them with something they value. Until now this dimension has been largely lacking from conservation decision-making and its underlying scientific evidence base. This is understandable given conservation scientists' historic focus on population and community ecology and the practical difficulties associated with assessing the cultural prominence of species or places at anything more than local scale.3. This latter challenge is rapidly being addressed through a new generation of culturomic metrics that takes advantage of publicly available digital content. 4. Here, we suggest that one such metric, estimated frequency of webpages that mention the scientific names of a species, broadly reflects the relative prominence of a species in global culture. 5. Using all extant bird species as a case study, we demonstrate that species that are mentioned at high frequency on the global internet: (a) were scientifically described earlier, (b) have wide geographic ranges that overlap with technologically advanced societies, (c) are phenotypically conspicuous and (d) are strongly associated with direct human interactions (e.g. hunting).6. These results support the use of estimates of scientific name frequency on the internet as a proxy of a species' cultural salience, especially with respect to urban populations in technologically advanced societies. 7. We conclude by discussing how a new generation of digital tools might be developed to support conservation monitoring and communication. K E Y W O R D S birds, cultural value, culturomics, digital methods, human-nature interactions | 525 People and Nature LADLE Et AL.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A culturomics approach to quantifying the salience of species on the global internet

et al. 2019

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“…Digital data availability and representativeness can be affected by various cultural, political, and socioeconomic factors, as well as demographic characteristics such as age, gender, and education. Furthermore, biases may also arise from different cultural norms, taboos, and misconceptions, as well as differences in internet and online platform usage motivations and habits, and their changes over time [ 70 , 71 ]. Social media users often represent a specific stratum of the population, and data may be biased towards more active users and specific social groups [ 61 , 71 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Another prevalent challenge is that the way people represent themselves on social media is often far removed from reality, and their interactions with others are filtered to make their representation appropriate to the intended audiences [ 61 , 73 ]. Digital data are also characterized by a range of linguistic challenges, including language barriers, semantic complexity, linguistic diversity and instability, and challenges related to interpretations, translations, and language norms [ 1 , 70 , 74 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While there are increasing efforts to digitize past content, in many cases, the earliest available data are limited. Furthermore, data access and use are hindered by nontransparent and dynamic data-access algorithms (such as Application Programming Interfaces [APIs]), often with limited access because of proprietary constraints, data sharing restrictions and firewalls, and limited replicability [ 1 , 61 , 70 , 75 ]. Online data are also characterized by temporal decay (i.e., webpage removal, data loss and deletion) and uneven archiving, as well as by the presence of unreliable data (i.e., incorrect spatial and temporal information, nonexpert species identifications, false information, etc.).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Expanding conservation culturomics and iEcology from terrestrial to aquatic realms

et al. 2020

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The ongoing digital revolution in the age of big data is opening new research opportunities. Culturomics and iEcology, two emerging research areas based on the analysis of online data resources, can provide novel scientific insights and inform conservation and management efforts. To date, culturomics and iEcology have been applied primarily in the terrestrial realm. Here, we advocate for expanding such applications to the aquatic realm by providing a brief overview of these new approaches and outlining key areas in which culturomics and iEcology are likely to have the highest impact, including the management of protected areas; fisheries; flagship species identification; detection and distribution of threatened, rare, and alien species; assessment of ecosystem status and anthropogenic impacts; and social impact assessment. When deployed in the right context with awareness of potential biases, culturomics and iEcology are ripe for rapid development as low-cost research approaches based on data available from digital sources, with increasingly diverse applications for aquatic ecosystems.

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“…Therefore, we predicted that: (i) H 1 : the implementation of European blacklist increased the number of Wikipedia searches for invasive mammals that were included in the list, compared to native species, (ii) H 2 : this effect declined rapidly in time, as there was no dedicated budget for permanent outreaching initiatives [20] , (iii) H 3 : Wikipedia views also increased in August 2017 and 2019, due to European blacklist updates, (iv) H 4 : the implementation of the European blacklist also increased the number of searches for invasive mammals that were not included, due to an increased interest towards IAS in general. Notably, while search engines data requires some cautions [21] [22] , the analysis of Wikipedia searches often includes people who voluntarily read up on a certain plant or animal species, and therefore Wikipedia searches can reflect increased interest towards a certain topic.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Blacklists do not necessarily make people curious about invasive alien species. A case study with Bayesian structural time series and Wikipedia searches about invasive mammals in Italy

Cerri¹,

Bertolino²,

Carnevali³

et al. 2020

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Blacklists of invasive alien species are a popular tool to manage and prevent biological invasions. Furthermore, by providing accessible examples of invasive alien species and by having a certain media resonance, they can in principle raise the awareness and make laypeople curious towards this topic. However, no study ever tested for this side-effect of blacklists. We tested if the implementation of the first blacklist of invasive alien species of the European concern, by the European Union in August 2016, increased visits to Wikipedia pages about invasive alien mammals in Italy. We adopted Bayesian Structural Time Series, using native mammals as a synthetic control, and we considered both invasive alien mammals that appeared on the list and those which were not included.Following the publication of the first European blacklist of invasive alien species, there was no increase in the amount of weekly visits to the Wikipedia pages about invasive mammals. This was true both for species that were included in the list and those which were not. Rather increased search volumes were syncronous to other events that had media resonance. Our results indicate that important policymaking initiatives, do not necessarily raise public awareness about biological invasions, even when these policies, such as blacklists, are easy to understand and have a certain media coverage. We emphasize the importance of coupling them with adequate communication campaigns and also to develop communication guidelines for the media.

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Inferring public interest from search engine data requires caution

Cited by 29 publications

References 17 publications

A culturomics approach to quantifying the salience of species on the global internet

A culturomics approach to quantifying the salience of species on the global internet

Expanding conservation culturomics and iEcology from terrestrial to aquatic realms

Blacklists do not necessarily make people curious about invasive alien species. A case study with Bayesian structural time series and Wikipedia searches about invasive mammals in Italy

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