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I had this sneaking suspicion that the true damages of the swine flu happened or is happening much after the media hype, so I decided to plot the cases of the Swine Flu against media trends measured by Google Insights, Facebook Lexicon, Technorati (blog trends), and BlogPulse. As expected, the peak of our conversation happened well before the Swine Flu spread across the globe and became a phase 6 pandemic.
Sources:
Notes:- The WHO data was compiled in Excel while all other charts were screen captured and overlayed in Photoshop.
- I'm not sure if I matched the graphs accurately enough, but if I did, it's interesting to note that Facebook and Blogs peaked before Google Searches, which could have some serious implications for identifying trends.
- It's amazing how sharp the peak was, and how the peaks for blogs, Facebook wall posts, and Google Searches happened within a few days of each other.
- I have no clue what the second peak on the BlogPulse is about. My guess is some kind of error or noise.
- I could not find a good source that counted the swine flu references in the major news outlets. The google news data is done by months which isn't nearly enough of a resolution.
- It should be mentioned that the Swine Flu was detected well before April 26th, which is the first day the WHO kept track of cases. WHO data tracks laboratory confirmed cases.
- For an anecdotal timeline of the Swine Flu dating back to February 2009, check out Fox News.
Clearly our attention to a certain societal phenomenon does not match the gravity of the situation. If it did, more people would be talking about car accidents rather than the swine flu. Automobile accidents kill more than a million people per year; the Swine Flu has killed 167 people.
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| | Posted 6/19/2009 2:29 AM - 76 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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