September 11 th Attack Reuters News Special Edition

“Special Edition” • The following slides show a set of CRA maps of Reuters news reports on the terrorist attack, collated at three hour intervals beginning a 9 a. m. on September 11 th. • These are the same maps that were previously distributed, but in this edition we have annotated them with our interpretations of what they are showing about the coverage. • At this point this is just a descriptive analysis, intended to show that CRA can capture crucial details of the coverage and how it varies over time. • We have mostly restricted comments to concepts shown on the high level maps, which only represent about 1 -3% of all the concepts in the full text for a given period. In a couple of cases we have drilled deeper with maps of particular words. • Finally, note that the data presented only runs the first 2 days— part of the value of CRA is to extend the identification of such patterns across larger amounts of textual data. Copyright © 2001 Arizona Board of Regents. All rights reserved.

Source of Data • Data set: Every story released by the news agency Reuters concerning the September 11 attack on the U. S. , beginning at 9: 00 AM EST • Stories were stripped of titles, headers, and by-lines • Stories were separated into 3 hour blocks, and each story in that block was combined into a single text • The text was appropriately cleaned and subjected to CRA analysis Copyright © 2001 Arizona Board of Regents. All rights reserved.

Reading a CRA Map • CRA = Centering Resonance Analysis – Text analysis method – Based on theory of discourse – Identifies influential words as those that connect other concepts together • The CRA Method – Identifies noun-phrase(NP) tokens (words making up NPs) – – Constructs connections between these words Represents the connections as a network Analyzes words via their structural position in the network We call words with an important structural position in the network influential Copyright © 2001 Arizona Board of Regents. All rights reserved.

The CRA Maps Shown Here • The “maps” here are visual representations of the CRA networks for each 3 hour time period. • Each period yields between 1000 -3000 selected words. This is too many to visualize, so the “toplevel” maps here show only the 30 or so most influential words for each period. • Green nodes (towards the bottom) are the most influential, blue nodes are next, and then white nodes are next--but all nodes shown are relatively influential. • Connections between nodes indicate the concepts are discursively linked. Copyright © 2001 Arizona Board of Regents. All rights reserved.

9. 11. 01 9 AM-Noon Other highly influential are the Plane and attack (green) words appearwords. This most influential showing the main are most means they locations. Using just the first three responsible for “tying hours’ text, CRA analysis together” the other words. shows the essential elements of the story in the most central positions. From the outset, the events are Bin Laden also 9. 11. 01 framed as an attack Tuesday appears in the first on the United States. three hours of the story, before there is any public evidence about who was involved. 9 AM-Noon Please examine the CRA map and then click for annotations. Copyright © 2001 Arizona Board of Regents. All rights reserved.

9. 11. 01 Noon-3 PM Bin Laden is again linked to the attack. More details are coming in as the detailed subnets for the word bin_laden show (click the following links to open web pages with the subnets). During the last time period he was described simply as a Saudi-born guerilla leader. During this time period he is associated with a Saudi dissident group, and there are indications that he is a suspect that was targeted in an American cruise missile attack in Afghanistan. Indications of concern with the possibility of attacks on other buildings… Also indications of a government response. Please examine the CRA map and then click for annotations. Copyright © 2001 Arizona Board of Regents. All rights reserved. …including embassies, which have been previous terrorist targets.

9. 11. 01 3 PM-6 PM A secondary theme in the news centers on the logistics of recovery efforts. For the first time “war” becomes highly influential, indicating that it is becoming another organizing concept for sense-making about the tragedy. In late afternoon of day 1, Bin Laden has dropped off the radar screen and the Palestinians are influencing the news. This is partly due to news about the Palestinian president, noticeable here in the high-level map. But the subnet for the word palestinian shows that a much richer set of connections is being made, including ties to possible terrorist suspects, and to the relationship between the U. S. , Israel, and the Palestinians. Copyright © 2001 Arizona Board of Regents. All rights reserved.

9. 11. 01 6 PM-9 PM …but after the war framing last time, the military is coming into the picture Continuing a trend started last period, the Pentagon is more influential in the news than the World Trade Center. The subnet for the word pentagon indicates the focus here was on damage to the building and not yet on war planning… Copyright © 2001 Arizona Board of Regents. All rights reserved.

9. 11. 01 9 PM-Midnight A dangerous rescue and recovery scene A marked increase this period in personalization of the of official Suggestion tragedy intelligence linking Bin Laden to the attacks Copyright © 2001 Arizona Board of Regents. All rights reserved.

9. 12. 01 Midnight-3 AM Number killed gains influence Evidence of widening Government institutional impact First fallout: concern over oil prices responsestock market. and the gets more specific Special attention to the Japan market and airline shares Copyright © 2001 Arizona Board of Regents. All rights reserved.

9. 12. 01 3 AM-6 AM Bin Laden and Afghanistan now both appear on the Discussion of the use of high-level map and force begins to assume are linked. a central position in discourse. Early Wednesday Former President Clinton is more central in the news than current President Bush. Copyright © 2001 Arizona Board of Regents. All rights reserved.

9. 12. 01 6 AM-9 AM At the close of the first 24 hour period the secondary coverage is focused on the aftermath. In this context Mayor Giuliani first appears as a highly influential concept. Copyright © 2001 Arizona Board of Regents. All rights reserved.

9. 12. 01 9: 00 AM-Noon In this period, there is not much new.

9. 12. 01 Noon-3 PM Once again, Palestinians The FBI makes its first replace Bin Laden on the appearance on the high level map. It took them high level map. only 24 hours to find and make public the Florida connection. Airports, flights, and related financial concerns are assuming a large role in the news. Copyright © 2001 Arizona Board of Regents. All rights reserved.

9. 12. 01 3 PM-6 PM Most of the highly influential words last Wednesday afternoon focus on airport security, airlines, and flights Wednesday, suggesting a concern with security and disruption of the system. U. S. oil supply is an issue in this period, probably reflecting Arab states’ assurances that supplies would not be cut. Copyright © 2001 Arizona Board of Regents. All rights reserved.

9. 12. 01 6 PM-9 PM Wednesday evening brings a secondary focus on apparent media coverage of the disaster… …especially television coverage of the collapse of the WTC Towers. Copyright © 2001 Arizona Board of Regents. All rights reserved.

9. 12. 01 9 PM-Midnight …and on efforts to prevent further crimes like theirs. The link to flight schools. Wednesday night develops. the U. S. response is a very influential path. Passenger who called his wife from the 4 th plane. News begins to focus squarely on the hijackers… Copyright © 2001 Arizona Board of Regents. All rights reserved.

Dynamics • We have identified four types of word dynamics in CRA graphs over time. We don’t yet have appropriate theoretical terms for these yet, but the working descriptions are: – Context: randomly varying (non-zero) influence over first 48 hours…provides a constant context for text – Emergent: either because of real time response, or sensemaking – Cyclical: Emerge, disappear, and emerge again – Immediate: important to telling of real time story, but not critical to sensemaking; this would include terms like fire, smoke, etc. (we have not included graphs of these) • The following slides show examples of the first three dynamics. Copyright © 2001 Arizona Board of Regents. All rights reserved.