Media Watch on Climate Change

The Media Watch on Climate Change (MWCC) is a visual analytics and knowledge co-creation environment developed in WP3 of DecarboNet. It allows users to track and discuss emerging trends in the public dialog, and to better understand the social perceptions of environmental topics. The Web portal is publicly accessible at www.ecoresearch.net/climate, providing access to a continuously updated archive of news and social media content that reflects the public climate and energy debate.

The portal’s analytical portfolio not only provides customized information services for citizens, but also important insights for policy makers, NGOs and other environmental stakeholders. The MWCC helps these stakeholders to develop better strategies for engaging audiences, guides their communication and public outreach campaigns, and increases the effectiveness of communication-related decision making processes.

An important part of the work in WP3 has been the development of visual analytics tools to better understand the context of Web coverage by establishing connections between named entities (persons, organizations, and locations), based on references to these entities in the MWCC knowledge repository.