Debuting New Source Analysis Tools

Those of you following Recorded Future for a while will remember a visualization that allowed you to explore reporting on events by different source attributes. We’re excited to reintroduce that functionality in the form of a new Source Map view available now in the Basic and Professional suite of tools. This visualization allows analysts to compare how events are reported across media types and source locations as well as what sources are most prominent, fastest to report, and positive or negative on particular events.

Below you’ll find examples for several of the aforementioned uses. Click on the images to explore the new Source Map live in Recorded Future, and be sure to try out the different filtering options available via the “Customize View” menu.

Media Type Breakdown

The view is able to deconstruct a set of events according to the media category of reporting sources: blog, mainstream, niche, government, etc. See a live example here.

Reporting on Events by Location of Sources

The Source Map can be used to display how events were reported based on the location of those media sources. The data is structured at the country level, so in the above example, you can see that United States, New Zealand, and Australian media outlets are dominating coverage of recent events related to North Korea.

Comparison of Topics by Source

Sources will often focus their energy on different subjects, rely on particular individuals for quotes, or skew the news in one direction or another. The organization of subject matter reported by different sources allows analysts to better understand those biases.

Measuring Sentiment, Speed, and Scope

There are many other dimensions of source data to be explored in Recorded Future. Above, you’ll see sources reporting on recent Microsoft events described by the sentiment of their reporting on the company. Other ways to evaluate the data include identifying those sources that report most frequently on a subject, most frequently break news of events, and even locations of events sorted by country of reporting sources.

Give the new features a try, and let us know what you think!