The Fifa World Cup, organized in Brazil between June 12th and July 13th of 2014, was a reason of protest and dissent. While the government promised that the event would give international projection to the country, bringing recognition and tourists, the opposition accused the administration of corruption and bad management, which led to building overpriced stadiums. Also, protesters argued that the money spent in the event would be better invested in schools, hospitals and other most important needs of the low-income population.
Query
The project intends to test the government argument and see if the money spent on the World Cup was somehow worthy. Two data sets are used: (1) the number of times "Brazil" turned up in article search in the New York Times API, indicating if the country really got more international projection in the media during the World Cup; (2) the number of checkouts in titles with the word "Brazil" or "Portuguese", to indicate if the growing attention in the press also stimulated potential tourists to look for travel guides and other books about the country and the language.
The query on the Seattle Public Library took 49.281 sec., using the following code:
Code: Select all
SELECT
MONTH(checkOut),
YEAR(checkOut),
COUNT(IF(TITLE LIKE '%Brazil%',
1,
NULL)) AS 'Brazil',
COUNT(IF(TITLE LIKE '%Portuguese%',
1,
NULL)) AS 'Portuguese'
FROM
_rawXmlDataCheckOuts
WHERE
DATE(checkOut) > '2013-09-01'
AND DATE(checkOut) < '2014-07-31'
GROUP BY MONTH(checkOut) , YEAR(checkOut)
ORDER BY YEAR(checkOut) , MONTH(checkOut)
The two data sets (SPL and NYT API) present a correlation of 0.87, which is considered very significant in Political Science. The highest values are presented in June and July 2014, the months when the World Cup was organized. In May 2014, the Seattle Public Library checked out 208 books with titles containing "Brazil" and 26 with "Portuguese". These numbers jumped to 250, in June, and 254, in July, in the case of mentions to "Brazil"; to 52 in June and 49 in July, with "Portuguese". The New York Times also published more articles about "Brazil" over time: 436, in March; 664, in April; 811, in May; 2068, in June; 1127, in July.
Design
The data is displayed in a soccer field, with the same proportion as the official dimensions by Fifa. Instead of using bars, each month is represented by an ellipse, as if they were soccer players preparing for a match. The shape also resembles a coin of the game "Matching Pennies", in which a player try to match a coin, facing "heads" or "tail", to the coin of the adversary.
As one soccer team has 11 players, the data set uses 11 months - from September 2013 to July 2014. The months are disposed like a soccer team. September is represented by the goalkeepers, who use jerseys with the number 1. Each "team" of data presents four Defenders (October to January) and four Midfielders (February to May). Finally, there are two Forwards to represent the months of June and July, when the World Cup was organized. As a coincidence, the Forwards have jerseys with the highest numbers, and these months have the highest values.
As the data sets have different ranges of values and represent different measures (books and articles), it was used a scale to match the highest values in each one. The scale is 303 to 100, in the Seattle Public Library data set, and 2068 to 100, in the New York Times data set. Their values are represented by an ellipse with a diameter of 50 pixels.
The numbers for each month are presented in the side of each "team" - as if they were the list of players. There is also mouse interaction to display the information of each cell (value, data set, month). To prevent the arrow from covering up the data itself, the values are displayed in the center of the field.
The "team" of the Seattle Public Library is represented by a yellow jersey and the New York Times "team", by a blue jersey. The colors were chosen based on the flag of Brazil (green, yellow and blue). Unfortunately, the exact colors of the flag weren't very good for the visualization of the data. The solution was to use a darker green for the soccer field. The other colors are based on the actual colors of the jerseys used by the Brazilian soccer team.
New version
After I uploaded the version, I decided to introduce another feature. Pressing keys '1' and '2', it is possible to move the "teams" to the other side of the field. This function is particularly interesting for three reasons:
(1) changing sides makes a better simulation of the game "matching pennies"
(2) an actual soccer game is divided by two halfs of 45 minutes, in each the teams changing the side where they defend. Changing sides makes a better simulation of a soccer game.
(3) pressing fast and several times the keys, the "player" can make a better comparison of each month, visualizing the difference of sizes between the data sets.
Version 3.0
Now the data of both "players" can be seen on the center of the field and a line connects both ellipses of the month. The result looks like one player kicked the ball to the adversary, or both players decided to run to the center of the field. The line has the same colors as the team jerseys. I also tested a white version of the line, but the result was confusing.