Earlier this year, digital artist Jer Thorp used the New York Times Article Search API to create visual displays exploring the areas of focus and interconnection found in articles. The Flickr sets posted by Thorp map changes in coverage over the course of time for narrow topics or keywords, or depict a broader range of themes over a shorter period of time, such as the relationships between key terms during a single year.
The most striking displays juxtapose two themes, diagramming their mutual waxing and waning through the years. The image above–showing relative references to hope and crisis since 1981, the pairing of regulation and innovation or socialism and capitalism provide visual histories of changes in public perception and civil society.
Thorp hopes to refine the system by developing visualizations of linkages keyed to specific events, including the span of presidencies or more discrete events such as September 11th.