Figure 12
Spike leaderboard. Time series of the ranked and weighted spike indicator function. At each time step t, the weighted spike indicator functions (WSpIF) are sorted so that the word with the highest WSpIF corresponds to the top time series, the words with the second-highest WSpIF corresponds to the second time series, and so on. Vertical ticks along the bottom mark fluctuations in the word occupying ranks 1 and 2 of WSpIF values. Top panels present the ranks of WSpIF values for words in the top 5 WSpIF values in a given time step for the sub-sampled period of 60 days. The top left panel, demonstrates the competition for social attention between geopolitical concerns—street protests in Egypt—and popular artists and popular culture influence—Rebecca Black and Demi Lovato. The top right panel displays the language surrounding the 2016 U.S. presidential election immediately after Donald Trump announced his candidacy. An interactive version of this graphic is available at the authors’ webpage: http://compstorylab.org/shocklets/ranked_spike_weighted_interactive.html