February 2007 Archives
So, Joe Golden and I are collaborating on a project for our networks class. The essence of the project is this: we're going to be collecting and analyzing television advertising data and relating it to different programs by constructing a network. Specifically, we're going to record all of the ads for certain blocks of television, and then we'll construct a (potentially gigantic) bipartite network connecting shows to ads. From this we can create a 1-mode projection linking shows to other shows (based on whether an ad was shown during both shows), or between ads (if the same ad aired during two different shows).
Alas, the collection process is a bit of a pain, so if you have any interest in helping us out, Joe and I would be extremely grateful.
Instructions:Please fill out one data sheet per show. Try to enter in data about each advertisement as thoroughly as possible (even if it's boring). Enter ads in order, and please demarcate when the show resumes with a --- line (see example). Bold fields are the most important data elements, so please be sure to enter these fields.
We're interested in collecting as much data as possible. In particular, we're trying to collect a complete set of data for prime time shows on the major networks from 7:00 PM - 10:00 PM, Monday through Friday. If you feel like collecting data from other times and/or networks, we still welcome it.
For each program, please be sure to enter your name (just so we can contact you regarding your collection, if we have problems), the program viewed, the date and time you viewed, on which network the show aired, and optionally the genre of the television program. For each ad, please identify the message/product/brand being sold, the vendor (if it is not clear from the context), what type of product/message it is, tags about the commercial (these are qualitative attributions that you might find noteworthy; for example, if a drug is advertised that is over-the-counter, you might want to put OTC as a tag. Another example: if you think the message/product is intended primarily for a specific race/gender etc., please make this attribution). The description is similar to tags, except that this is intended to help us try to identify clips of the ad (via YouTube or Google Video, for example). This is especially useful if there are several permutations of essentially the same ad.
When you are done with the data sheet, you may (preferably) email it to us (john.umbaugh at gmail dot com), or if you printed the data sheet and recorded by hand, you can mail the data sheet to:
John Umbaugh 330 Village Green Blvd. Apt. 208 Ann Arbor, MI 48105
For our paper, we'd be happy to attribute you your help in the data collection. And of course, we'll post the results once we've found any. Hopefully, they'll be interesting!
