Data Analysis in Politics and Journalism Winter /Spring 2019. Introduction to topic modelling. Seminar 3

What is topic modelling
Automatically identifying major themes in a text, usually by identifying informative words.
Two main uses:
identifying major topics in unlabeled texts;
identify which words are important for text that is labeled for topic

B.S. ? Detector
Chrome extension
Searches all links on a given webpage for references to unreliable sources,
Classification:
Fake News: Sources that fabricate stories out of whole cloth with the intent of pranking the public.
Satire: Sources that provide humorous commentary on current events in the form of fake news.
Extreme Bias: Sources that traffic in political propaganda and gross distortions of fact.
Conspiracy Theory: Sources that are well-known promoters of kooky conspiracy theories.
Rumor Mill: Sources that traffic in rumors, innuendo, and unverified claims.
State News: Sources in repressive states operating under government sanction.
Junk Science: Sources that promote pseudoscience, metaphysics, and other scientifically dubious claims.
Hate Group: Sources that actively promote racism, and other forms of discrimination.
Clickbait: Sources that are aimed at generating online advertising revenue and rely on sensationalist headlines or eye-catching pictures.
Proceed With Caution: Sources that may be reliable but whose contents require further verification.

Dataset
244 websites
12999 news
Tagged as “bullshit” by B.S. Detector:
"bias"
"conspiracy”
"fake"
"bs" (unlabeled)
"satire"
"hate"
"junksci”
"state"