LexisNexis(R) Results for Scientology search
Monica Pignotti
reports on Scientology has greatly increased since Anonymous came on
the scene, I decided to check this out for myself. I did a Power
search on LexisNexis that included all major world publications. Here
is what came up:
All searches were done on the term "Scientology"
Dates:
June 16, 2007 and June 16, 2008.
Yielded 1657 results
June 16, 2006 and June 16, 2007
Yielded 1619 results
June 16, 2005 and June 16, 2006
Yielded 1649 results
June 16, 2004 and June 16, 2005
Yielded 527 results
It is evident that the number of results for Scientology has remained
pretty constant over the past three years. However, there was a huge
jump between 4 years and 3 years ago, from 527 to 1649. Note that this
was long before Anonymous came on the scene. What changed during that
time? The Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes story hit the media and Tom
Cruise began generating much publicity for Scientology. What impact
has Anonymous had on number of media stories? Apparently, nothing
major. Comparing the number of media stories in the past year to the
year before, there are only 38 more new stories coming up on
LexisNexis. Hardly the huge leap that is being claimed. It looks to me
like the dramatic upsurge in media on Scientology happened after Tom
Cruise's relationship with Katie Holmes hit the media and Anonymous
has had very little impact.
I have to say that I really am surprised by this. Even though I have
been very skeptical about Anonymous, I really did expect that there
had been a huge increase in press after Anonymous came on the scene,
but looking at the actual numbers that, too, was only hype.
So there's a reality check. Even if there had been a big upsurge, that
wouldn't have meant that Scientology was being damaged but there isn't
even a major upsurge in press. In looking over the articles that came
up, they were very mixed -- some negative, but some positive or
neutral. Most were about Tom Cruise.
Monica
R. Hill
> Since there have been so many claims here that the number of media
> reports on Scientology has greatly increased since Anonymous came on
> the scene, I decided to check this out for myself. I did a Power
> search on LexisNexis that included all major world publications. Here
> is what came up:
>
> All searches were done on the term "Scientology"
>
> Dates:
> June 16, 2007 and June 16, 2008.
> Yielded 1657 results
>
> June 16, 2006 and June 16, 2007
> Yielded 1619 results
>
> June 16, 2005 and June 16, 2006
> Yielded 1649 results
>
> June 16, 2004 and June 16, 2005
> Yielded 527 results
>
> It is evident that the number of results for Scientology has remained
> pretty constant over the past three years.
We are not even mid-year yet.
R. Hill
Never mind, read/answered too quick.
--
Ray.
Monica Pignotti
>
I know that. Look at the dates of the searches. I purposely did them,
comparing full years, using today's date, June 16th, so I was
comparing two 12 month periods. I was not comparing a full year to a
half year. I was comparing two full years, June 16th to June 16th.
Monica
R. Hill
The thing is, how do we know for sure what the figures would be
*without* anonymous? You imply they would have been close to what is
seen in the previous years, but I can't convince myself that this would
have been the case, since news pieces about Scientology don't come at a
constant rate, but rather in burst.
There were many important events in the previous years that caused the
media to look more into Scientology. Would a more appropriate
methodology (but admittedly which would require too much work), might be
to also count the number of Scientology-related media-worth events and
see how they correlate to the number of news articles? (Some sort of
normalization, media occurrence/event.)
I think Google has a feature that allow to see the news articles density
vs. time, so maybe the peaks could be counted, again with the assumption
that Google would keep a representative archives of articles...
Anyway, I get your point, we don't know how affected (or not) the
Scientology corporations are, since there is no truthful statements to
expect from them, so we can state for sure what effect "Anonymous" has.
Some newly outspoken former members have stated that the movement
triggered them to speak out publicly though, that would be a concrete
achievement whether it was intended or not, I sure welcome that, and the
extra scrutiny too.
--
Ray
BigBeard
"Monica Pignotti" <pign...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:a06f354b-0012-408b...@z24g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
: Since there have been so many claims here that the number of media
Does this include the 'on-line only edition' news reports?
I've noticed a number of news outlets putting reports about Anonymous
in their 'on-line' editions, with no mention in the hard copies at
the news stands. This seems to be changing in a few cases, but
slowly.
Also, what do the numbers look like if you EXCLUDE any articles
related to TomKat?
BigBeard
Katana ko chi, SPsoo
Monica Pignotti
But looking at the news over the period of a year should allow for
those bursts. This year there are many stories about Anonymous but the
year before something else was obviously generating just as much
press, as was the case the year before that, so it seems that
Anonymous is not generating any more press than those earlier things
were. Of course, a more detailed analysis would be hepful in
identifying what those were.
> There were many important events in the previous years that caused the
> media to look more into Scientology. Would a more appropriate
> methodology (but admittedly which would require too much work), might be
> to also count the number of Scientology-related media-worth events and
> see how they correlate to the number of news articles? (Some sort of
> normalization, media occurrence/event.)
Yes, a more detailed analysis would, of course, be helpful. That said,
it is interesting to see that the number of media stories have been
fairly constant for the past three years. The big leap seems to have
occurred after the Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes story hit the media.
>
> I think Google has a feature that allow to see the news articles density
> vs. time, so maybe the peaks could be counted, again with the assumption
> that Google would keep a representative archives of articles...
I'm not sure if Google would provide as much as LexisNexis does, which
is the database professional journalists and media experts use.
LexisNexis could probably do that as well.
> Anyway, I get your point, we don't know how affected (or not) the
> Scientology corporations are, since there is no truthful statements to
> expect from them, so we can state for sure what effect "Anonymous" has.
> Some newly outspoken former members have stated that the movement
> triggered them to speak out publicly though, that would be a concrete
> achievement whether it was intended or not, I sure welcome that, and the
> extra scrutiny too.
That's been the case with the internet for awhile now, even before
Anonymous. Look at all the people who left over the past 10 years who
have been speaking out on the Internet. The real question is whether
Anonymous is adding anything and if the overall impact of any
publicity generated will be positive or negative. If there had been a
big upsurge in media, that could have actually been good for the CofS,
even if it was negative, but that doesn't seem to be the case so its a
moot issue.
Monica Pignotti
> "Monica Pignotti" <pigno...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
I just did a separate search for web publications and here's what I
got
June 16 2007 to June 16 2008: 121
June 16 2006 to June 16 2007: 117
June 16 2005 to June 16 2006: 99
June 16 2004 to June 16 2005: 21
Looks like the same pattern. We also have to take into account that
everything has increased on the internet with each passing year.
> I've noticed a number of news outlets putting reports about Anonymous
> in their 'on-line' editions, with no mention in the hard copies at
> the news stands. This seems to be changing in a few cases, but
> slowly.
That makes sense.
> Also, what do the numbers look like if you EXCLUDE any articles
> related to TomKat?
I'm not sure. The TC video is also tied in with Anonymous, though so
it might be hard to separate.
Monica
Jonnie Tyler
news:g36svv$dfc$1...@registered.motzarella.org...
That may be a good point. Maybe Anonymous was one of the things that kept
the higher rate constant. It's really kind of linked. Cruise jumping on the
sofa, Cruise video being leaked, Anonymous reacting to the censorship.
> There were many important events in the previous years that caused the
> media to look more into Scientology. Would a more appropriate methodology
> (but admittedly which would require too much work), might be to also count
> the number of Scientology-related media-worth events and see how they
> correlate to the number of news articles? (Some sort of normalization,
> media occurrence/event.)
>
> I think Google has a feature that allow to see the news articles density
> vs. time, so maybe the peaks could be counted, again with the assumption
> that Google would keep a representative archives of articles...
The problem with Google is that it does not go far enough. It only started
relatively recently. The other problem is that they don't seem to
systematically archive everything. There's quite a few articles I read at
the time which I can't find in the archives anymore.
obscene dog
I'll bet my bottom dollar that the majority of news stories prior to
2008 were pro or neutral about the Cult purely based on the media
being scared of the litigiousness of said Cult.
I also bet that the majority of news stories in 2008 are leaning
towards being critical or containing criticism of the Cult.
The fact the amount of Cult related stories hasn't increased does not
surprise me in the least. The media aren't interested in protests
unless something happens that they can dramatise to increase viewing
figures.
Epic Nose Guy, a 15 year old boy being threatened by the cops, is a
prime example.
--
Don't get in front of me.
What the... Oh, shi-
barb
But it's only June. Wait until we can get the whole year's stats before
you start issuing proclamations.
--
Barb "That's Captain Barbossa to you!"
Chaplain, ARSCC (wdne)
It's Poodlin' Time!
“I think that the protections that we enjoy for freedom of worship exist
so long as we don’t step over the line. When religious worship and
belief cross over into things like fraud, victimization of others and
the disruption of the political arena, that protection is no longer
appropriate.”
--Robert Goff
Professor Emeritus, UCSC
redco...@gmail.com
You are wearing your cultie kneepads today
Monica Pignotti
What you seem to have missed, Barb was that I compared a full years
worth, not half a years. It was from June 16th to June 16th. Anonymous
has been around for nearly six months now. If there had been the huge
impact of media explosion that is claimed it should already been at
least some difference after half a year. I knew the true believers
would try to explain things away, though. That was too predictable.
> --
> Barb "That's Captain Barbossa to you!"
> Chaplain, ARSCC (wdne)
> It's Poodlin' Time!
>
> “I think that the protections that we enjoy for freedom of worship exist
> so long as we don’t step over the line. When religious worship and
> belief cross over into things like fraud, victimization of others and
> the disruption of the political arena, that protection is no longer
> appropriate.”
>
> --Robert Goff
> Professor Emeritus, UCSC- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Monica Pignotti
No, Scientology got plenty of negative press prior to 2008. In fact,
quite a few of the stories in 2008 were highly sympathetic to
Scientology, arguing that it was not a cult and reacting negatively to
the high degree of criticism, which often exaggerates (e.g. saying
that Scientology is as bad as the Nazi's). I read on OCMB that when
Tory and some others appeared on Dr. Drew's show he cautioned them not
to exaggerate. Dr. Drew's comment was very telling about the kind of
reputation critics are getting.
> I also bet that the majority of news stories in 2008 are leaning
> towards being critical or containing criticism of the Cult.
Actually, in looking through them there doesn't appear to be a
difference. There have been negative articles about the CofS over the
years, all along, as well as positive ones. The only difference is
that in 2008 there seem to be more articles where people who are not
Scientologists seem to want to defend Scientology and say they don't
think it is so bad. That seems to be a backlash against the extremism.
> The fact the amount of Cult related stories hasn't increased does not
> surprise me in the least. The media aren't interested in protests
> unless something happens that they can dramatise to increase viewing
> figures.
>
> Epic Nose Guy, a 15 year old boy being threatened by the cops, is a
> prime example.
The claim has been increased media. I agree with you that an increased
number of media stories wouldn't necessarily mean that Anonymous is
winning but since people have been equating it with that, I wanted to
check it out and see how many there actually were. Increased negative
media reports doesn't necessarily mean that Scientology would be
harmed, though. There can easily be a backlash if Anonymous is seen as
extreme and when people start making extreme claims they cannot
substantiate (for example, the unsubstantiated claim I've been hearing
that Scientology has actually murdered people based on nothing more
than rumor and heresay) what happens is people become skeptical and
end up sympathetic to the Scientologists.
> --
>
> Don't get in front of me.
> What the... Oh, shi-- Hide quoted text -
t_shuffle
"Monica Pignotti" <pign...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in
message
news:a06f354b-0012-408b...@z24g2000prf.googlegroups.com
I'm calling bullshit, for a couple of reasons.
The first is that I don't really trust you. You've lately become so rabidly
obsessed with making others wrong that I'm fairly certain that you would fib
just a little to bolster your arguement. Sorry.
The second is that the data you posted doesn't differentiate between
meaningless Scientology fluff pieces, and real articles containing real
information. Of which lately there have been hundreds. That wasn't the case
a year ago.
And it's a fairly safe bet for you to cite a LexisNexis Power Search, as you
know full well that it's highly doubtfull anyone here has an account. Which
means we'll just have to take you word for it. I'm not.
henri
<thorazin...@gmail.com> wrote:
>"Monica Pignotti" <pign...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in
>message
>news:a06f354b-0012-408b...@z24g2000prf.googlegroups.com
(Power search, all major world publications)
>> All searches were done on the term "Scientology"
>> Dates:
>> June 16, 2007 and June 16, 2008.
>> Yielded 1657 results
>>
>> June 16, 2006 and June 16, 2007
>> Yielded 1619 results
>>
>> June 16, 2005 and June 16, 2006
>> Yielded 1649 results
>>
>> June 16, 2004 and June 16, 2005
>> Yielded 527 results
[. . .]
>I'm calling bullshit, for a couple of reasons.
The chief among them would appear to be that you don't know what the
fuck you're talking about.
>The first is that I don't really trust you. You've lately become so rabidly
>obsessed with making others wrong that I'm fairly certain that you would fib
>just a little to bolster your arguement. Sorry.
So therefore, do the search yourself and verify it. If you can't just
STFU. Jesus. It's not like she said the Moon was made of green
cheese or reported a rain of glowing, radioactive frogs in Swaziland.
She said a certain search term in a certain database got a certain
result. Calling bullshit on that without even checking is fucking
RETARDED.
I'll do it myself. I can't duplicate exactly her search, but I'm just
using "Major Newspapers" as a proxy.
Source: News & Business > Combined Sources > Major
Newspapers Source Description
6/16/2007 - 6/16/2008 1363 results
6/16/2006 - 6/16/2007 1419 results
6/16/2005 - 6/16/2006 1856 results
6/16/2004 - 6/16/2005 626 results
As you can see, the results are basically proportional to hers. Mine
are slightly different. I'm sure if we were searching exactly the
same databases, we'd get exactly the same results.
I have no clue why the fuck you would consider this something any
rational person could call bullshit on, much less without even
bothering to check.
t_shuffle
"henri" <he...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:2kde54540lpm0dd7m...@4ax.com
I still stand behind what you chose to snip.
Nec_V20
> "henri" <he...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
>
> news:2kde54540lpm0dd7m...@4ax.com
>
>
>
> > On Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:09:44 -0700, "t_shuffle"
>
> >>"Monica Pignotti" <pigno...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in
t_shuffle,
henri did however take you up on what you posted, did a similar search
and came out with analogous results.
The results themselves are only a quantitative indicator and of course
have no relevance with regard to any qualitative properties.
However, if a major occurrence with regard to Scientology had entered
the public consciousness one would have expected the raw quantitative
figures to have varied significantly upwards (as was the case with Tom
Cruise) - which they seemingly have not.
Thus the hypothesis, "Anonymous has raised public awareness with
regard to Scientology" when tested against the null-hypothesis
"Anonymous has had no effect on the level of public awareness of
Scientology" with regard to the data collected fails to meet the
margin of significance within the populations sampled given the
numbers supplied by both Monica and henri.
Now of course my observation here could be biased, but considering I
have no relationship to Monica and henri pretty much detests me, I
would think that such considerations can be dismissed as moot.
Android Cat
> I have to say that I really am surprised by this. Even though I have
> been very skeptical about Anonymous, I really did expect that there
> had been a huge increase in press after Anonymous came on the scene,
> but looking at the actual numbers that, too, was only hype.
>
> So there's a reality check. Even if there had been a big upsurge, that
> wouldn't have meant that Scientology was being damaged but there isn't
> even a major upsurge in press. In looking over the articles that came
> up, they were very mixed -- some negative, but some positive or
> neutral. Most were about Tom Cruise.
I'm skeptical that simply counting search hits yields any meaningful
results. I believe that the Tom Cruise factor has been adding too much
noise with fluff "celeb stories" since 2005, even if articles from
publications with more gossip than fact are screened out.
I have the feeling that there has been an accelerating trend in good factual
articles for the last few years, but I don't think I can quantify it. I also
have no way of measuring the impact a particular article has.
--
Ron of that ilk.
FrontCite archive of news links
http://home.primus.ca/~ronsharp/FrontCiteTW.html#Timeline
feministe
news:7845744d-51a7-4d90...@q27g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
Monica
Search is not really complete perhaps. "Scientologie" should have been used
too, since I know by instance that there have been perhaps 4 or 5 more
articles since january in france, and perhaps in other countries like
germany etc, than usually.
feministe
news:g36svv$dfc$1...@registered.motzarella.org...
I'd say that, perhaps as much important to the cult, has been the internal
squirelling of the 18 books, together with many other facts and campaigns
etc. What is VERY evident now is the number of ads the crimecult does
everywhere on Internet; I'd bet that this is the result of the URGENCE
condition, no?
r
>
> --
> Ray
Nec_V20
> "Monica Pignotti" <pigno...@worldnet.att.net> a écrit dans le message denews:7845744d-51a7-4d90...@q27g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
feministe,
in Germany Scientology is legally not permitted to use the term
"Scientologie". The term "Scientologie" is the intellectual property
of Dr. Anastasius Nordenholz who coined the term in his book
"Scientologie, Wissenschaft von der Beschaffenheit und der
Tauglichkeit des Wissens" (Scientology: Science of the Constitution
and Usefulness of Knowledge) in 1934.
You would however be correct with regard to France.
feministe
news:TfD5k.226453$ng7.1...@en-nntp-05.dc1.easynews.com...
> "R. Hill" <rh...@xenu-directory.net> wrote in message
> news:g36svv$dfc$1...@registered.motzarella.org...
>> Monica Pignotti wrote:
>>
>> The thing is, how do we know for sure what the figures would be *without*
>> anonymous? You imply they would have been close to what is seen in the
>> previous years, but I can't convince myself that this would have been the
>> case, since news pieces about Scientology don't come at a constant rate,
>> but rather in burst.
>
> That may be a good point. Maybe Anonymous was one of the things that kept
> the higher rate constant. It's really kind of linked. Cruise jumping on
> the sofa, Cruise video being leaked, Anonymous reacting to the censorship.
Lots of other things happened in EU:
Belgian authorities soon to get the crime cult before court, and second raid
of the belgian justice in the Brussel's org
London police mixing lobbying with personal profit,
sequestration from a french girl in Italy,
suicide of the daughter of a norwegian politician in France
German minister and others criticizing the totalitarian sides of the crime
cult
Cruise being badly received in Germany and his filming having an accident
r
au4...@gmail.com
> Since there have been so many claims here that the number of media
> reports on Scientology has greatly increased since Anonymous came on
> the scene, I decided to check this out for myself. I did a Power
> is what came up:
Monica your post presupposes that publicity for the cult is bad news.
Anonymous gets lots of credit for this new mindset.
Way to go anonymous!
Fredric L. Rice
>"Monica Pignotti" <pign...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in
>message
>news:a06f354b-0012-408b...@z24g2000prf.googlegroups.com
>> Since there have been so many claims here that the number
>> of media reports on Scientology has greatly increased
>> since Anonymous came on the scene, I decided to check
>meaningless Scientology fluff pieces, and real articles containing real
>information.
The Scientology crime syndicate has ramped up its public relations
lies, is all, trying to regroup in the aftermath of the ARSCC and
Anonymous. Monica is simply unable to reason.
---
http://www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=71238
Scientology smacked down for trying to stop free speech
Monica Pignotti
> "Monica Pignotti" <pigno...@worldnet.att.net> a écrit dans le message denews:7845744d-51a7-4d90...@q27g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
4 or 5 more articles out of 1600 isn't really going to make a
difference. There just aren't the dramatic increases that are being
claimed.
Monica Pignotti
> On Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:09:44 -0700, "t_shuffle"
>
> >"Monica Pignotti" <pigno...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in
So there we have it. Thanks for the replication, Henri, although it
will probably get you flamed. Some people just don't want to be
bothered with facts and would rather make assessments on their own
wishful thinking and personal attacks on anyone who challenges it.
Monica Pignotti
> "t_shuffle" <thorazineshuf...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >message
> >news:a06f354b-0012-408b...@z24g2000prf.googlegroups.com
> >> Since there have been so many claims here that the number
> >> of media reports on Scientology has greatly increased
> >> since Anonymous came on the scene, I decided to check
> >I'm calling bullshit, for a couple of reasons.
> >The second is that the data you posted doesn't differentiate between
> >meaningless Scientology fluff pieces, and real articles containing real
> >information.
>
> The Scientology crime syndicate has ramped up its public relations
> lies, is all, trying to regroup in the aftermath of the ARSCC and
> Anonymous. Monica is simply unable to reason.
>
scrambling to explain away null results. The fact is that there should
have been a huge upsurge if the grandiose claims being made were true,
but there wasn't. There's just no way you can explain this away. As
for what t-shuffle maintains, the tremendous upsurge in fluff pieces
clearly occurred between 2004 and 2005, where there was a very large
increase in articles on Scientology. After that, number of articles
has remained quite constant over the past 3 years with no dramatic
increases after Anonymous came on the scene. Of course, a more
detailed analysis of the content could be done, but it can't be
explained by the puff pieces because they had already increased.
Monica Pignotti
> Monica Pignotti wrote:
> > I have to say that I really am surprised by this. Even though I have
> > been very skeptical about Anonymous, I really did expect that there
> > had been a huge increase in press after Anonymous came on the scene,
> > but looking at the actual numbers that, too, was only hype.
>
> > So there's a reality check. Even if there had been a big upsurge, that
> > wouldn't have meant that Scientology was being damaged but there isn't
> > even a major upsurge in press. In looking over the articles that came
> > up, they were very mixed -- some negative, but some positive or
> > neutral. Most were about Tom Cruise.
>
> I'm skeptical that simply counting search hits yields any meaningful
> results. I believe that the Tom Cruise factor has been adding too much
> noise with fluff "celeb stories" since 2005, even if articles from
> publications with more gossip than fact are screened out.
The Tom Cruise factor began in 2005, where you'll see there was a huge
upsurge in articles on Scientology. Since then, the numbers have been
very similar. If Anonymous had made the dramatic impact claimed, we
should have seen a huge upsurge already in 2008, but there is no big
difference.
>
> I have the feeling that there has been an accelerating trend in good factual
> articles for the last few years, but I don't think I can quantify it. I also
> have no way of measuring the impact a particular article has.
You may have a feeling, but it isn't showing up in the statistics.
True believers commonly have feelings that cannot be quantified which
is why a reality check is a good idea.
Of course, if it had been found that press had tremendously increased,
as I pointed out before, that wouldn't necessarily mean that the
impact on Scientology was negative. Highly negative articles can
sometimes have the opposite of the intended effect and bring the
target sympathy, and thus the saying that there is no such thing as
bad publicity. Lots of press of any kind could help Scientology, bad
or good which is why if a big increase were found, more analyses would
need to be done to see what the ultimate impact was on Scientology.
But that's a moot issue because so far, no big increases were found.
Monica
Monica Pignotti
> On Jun 16, 6:35 pm, Monica Pignotti <pigno...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> > Since there have been so many claims here that the number of media
> > reports on Scientology has greatly increased since Anonymous came on
> > the scene, I decided to check this out for myself. I did a Power
> > search onLexisNexisthat included all major world publications. Here
> > is what came up:
>
> Monica your post presupposes that publicity for the cult is bad news.
No, I am presupposing no such thing. In fact, I have repeatedly
stated just the opposite, that it could go either way. Sorry for
people who don't need to have this repeated, but to repeat myself for
the umpteenth time since you still don't seem to be getting it:
My point in doing these searches was to check out a specific claim
being made by Anonymous that press had increased. My searches showed
this to be false. What increased press actually means is a separate
point but given that there are no big differences, it is a moot issue.
> Anonymous gets lots of credit for this new mindset.
> Way to go anonymous!
Way to go, true believer, for doing what any charlatan or quack does
-- attempt to explain away null results and twist things to suit your
own agenda. Bottom line is that Anonymous has repeatedly claimed to
have increased publicity and a search on LexisNexis, plus the one
replicated by Henri on a different database has falsified that claim.
What increased press means is something I have been challenging all
along but its a moot issue because there have been no increases.
Eldon
wrote:
> Since there have been so many claims here that the number of media
> reports on Scientology has greatly increased since Anonymous came on
> the scene, I decided to check this out for myself. I did a Power
Major world publications. Er, OK... that's the oldest of Old Media.
Your search did not even include TV and radio broadcasts, right? In
other words, the BBC and 48 Hours shows wouldn't even show up there.
At this point, Anonymous is getting media coverage mainly in local
newspapers and TV news shows doing coverage of local raids. And of
course YouTube is full of stuff. That's not to mention a bunch of
websites that went up recently.
It's a New Media phenomenon in case you hadn't noticed. Therefore your
"results" are at best skewed, and at worst irrelevant.
I would say there will be additional coverage by major Old Media
publications in the future when they get around to it and dust off
their typewriters.
> Here
> is what came up:
>
> All searches were done on the term "Scientology"
>
> Dates:
> June 16, 2007 and June 16, 2008.
> Yielded 1657 results
>
> June 16, 2006 and June 16, 2007
> Yielded 1619 results
>
> June 16, 2005 and June 16, 2006
> Yielded 1649 results
>
> June 16, 2004 and June 16, 2005
> Yielded 527 results
>
> It is evident that the number of results for Scientology has remained
> pretty constant over the past three years. However, there was a huge
> jump between 4 years and 3 years ago, from 527 to 1649. Note that this
> was long before Anonymous came on the scene. What changed during that
> time? The Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes story hit the media and Tom
> Cruise began generating much publicity for Scientology. What impact
> has Anonymous had on number of media stories? Apparently, nothing
> major. Comparing the number of media stories in the past year to the
> year before, there are only 38 more new stories coming up on
> LexisNexis. Hardly the huge leap that is being claimed. It looks to me
> like the dramatic upsurge in media on Scientology happened after Tom
> Cruise's relationship with Katie Holmes hit the media and Anonymous
> has had very little impact.
>
> I have to say that I really am surprised by this. Even though I have
> been very skeptical about Anonymous, I really did expect that there
> had been a huge increase in press after Anonymous came on the scene,
> but looking at the actual numbers that, too, was only hype.
>
> So there's a reality check. Even if there had been a big upsurge, that
> wouldn't have meant that Scientology was being damaged but there isn't
> even a major upsurge in press. In looking over the articles that came
> up, they were very mixed -- some negative, but some positive or
> neutral. Most were about Tom Cruise.
>
> Monica
John Dorsay
> Monica Pignotti wrote:
>
>> I have to say that I really am surprised by this. Even though I have
>> been very skeptical about Anonymous, I really did expect that there
>> had been a huge increase in press after Anonymous came on the scene,
>> but looking at the actual numbers that, too, was only hype.
>>
>> So there's a reality check. Even if there had been a big upsurge, that
>> wouldn't have meant that Scientology was being damaged but there isn't
>> even a major upsurge in press. In looking over the articles that came
>> up, they were very mixed -- some negative, but some positive or
>> neutral. Most were about Tom Cruise.
>
> I'm skeptical that simply counting search hits yields any meaningful
> results. I believe that the Tom Cruise factor has been adding too much
> noise with fluff "celeb stories" since 2005, even if articles from
> publications with more gossip than fact are screened out.
It's as meaningless as the cult's 8 million members claim.
But Monica sure is milking it, judging by all the replies.
If she wanted to produce numbers with any meaning whatsoever, it
would take more work. She could, for example, count the number of
articles mentioning scientology since Anonymous arrived on the
scene. From those, she could count the number of articles which
also mention Anonymous.
Unless the second number is zero, her contention that Anonymous has
had no impact on media fails immediately. One can look at the ratio
of the resulting numbers for a course measure that might actually
offer some insight into the impact of Anonymous on media.
Just my two cents.
John
Android Cat
> On Jun 17, 2:23 am, "Android Cat" <androidca...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> Monica Pignotti wrote:
>>> I have to say that I really am surprised by this. Even though I have
>>> been very skeptical about Anonymous, I really did expect that there
>>> had been a huge increase in press after Anonymous came on the scene,
>>> but looking at the actual numbers that, too, was only hype.
>>
>>> So there's a reality check. Even if there had been a big upsurge,
>>> that wouldn't have meant that Scientology was being damaged but
>>> there isn't even a major upsurge in press. In looking over the
>>> articles that came up, they were very mixed -- some negative, but
>>> some positive or neutral. Most were about Tom Cruise.
>>
>> I'm skeptical that simply counting search hits yields any meaningful
>> results. I believe that the Tom Cruise factor has been adding too
>> much
>> noise with fluff "celeb stories" since 2005, even if articles from
>> publications with more gossip than fact are screened out.
>
> The Tom Cruise factor began in 2005, where you'll see there was a huge
> upsurge in articles on Scientology. Since then, the numbers have been
> very similar. If Anonymous had made the dramatic impact claimed, we
> should have seen a huge upsurge already in 2008, but there is no big
> difference.
Really? How did you decide that there should be an increase in the total
number of articles that have the word "Scientology" in them?
Since you've done no analysis of the content of the articles over time to
filter out the fluff (and perhaps Scientology PR), what you have is a very
raw statistic that you're projecting your conclusions on. There's a bias
built-in that all keyword hits of Scientology are of equal value and you
can't say that these stories are all "on Scientology", just that there was a
keyword hit.
>> I have the feeling that there has been an accelerating trend in good
>> factual
>> articles for the last few years, but I don't think I can quantify
>> it. I also
>> have no way of measuring the impact a particular article has.
>
> You may have a feeling, but it isn't showing up in the statistics.
> True believers commonly have feelings that cannot be quantified which
> is why a reality check is a good idea.
And people who have spent a lot of time actually indexing the articles for
citation have impressions too--unlike someone who plugs in a raw search and
pulls out a sugar-plum.
> Of course, if it had been found that press had tremendously increased,
> as I pointed out before, that wouldn't necessarily mean that the
> impact on Scientology was negative. Highly negative articles can
> sometimes have the opposite of the intended effect and bring the
> target sympathy, and thus the saying that there is no such thing as
> bad publicity. Lots of press of any kind could help Scientology, bad
> or good which is why if a big increase were found, more analyses would
> need to be done to see what the ultimate impact was on Scientology.
> But that's a moot issue because so far, no big increases were found.
Having set up the strawman that there should be an increase in the number of
articles where the keyword "Scientology" occurs, you knock it down and give
it a kick for good measure and declare that there's no point in further
analysis. Bravo!
R. Hill
> Since there have been so many claims here that the number of media
> reports on Scientology has greatly increased since Anonymous came on
> the scene, I decided to check this out for myself. I did a Power
> is what came up:
Maybe the claims were made based on this:
or
If so, that wouldn't be so unreasonable to make such a claim.
--
Ray
dharm...@gmail.com
She decided because of her massive learnings. Also: Her experience in
being in several cults and having to try to break away from them.
That makes her extra-super-duper smart, didn't you know?
...but seriously... It seems as though Monica made several
assumptions about which data she would analyze without bothering to
see if the particular data set included all data sources and whether
or not the data was relevant to her main theory. She failed on both
counts, as she did when she assumed that the "work" she did has not
already been performed extensively and with greater proficiency of
statistical analysis.
Did you actually expect that she would be intellectually honest when
presenting information to make her point? She has failed to follow
the simplest of logical thought processes thus far when writing about
the Anonymous cyber-activism movement, so I don't see why this time
would be any different.
For being a self-proclaimed "skeptic", she sure has a hard time
understanding evidence and statistics, doesn't she?
henri
<thorazin...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Source: News & Business > Combined Sources > Major
>> Newspapers Source Description
>> 6/16/2007 - 6/16/2008 1363 results
>> 6/16/2006 - 6/16/2007 1419 results
>> 6/16/2005 - 6/16/2006 1856 results
>> 6/16/2004 - 6/16/2005 626 results
>> As you can see, the results are basically proportional to
>> hers. Mine are slightly different. I'm sure if we were
>> searching exactly the same databases, we'd get exactly
>> the same results.
>> I have no clue why the fuck you would consider this
>> something any rational person could call bullshit on,
>> much less without even bothering to check.
>I still stand behind what you chose to snip.
Then you're a fucking imbecile, impervious to objective reality.
[shrugs]
*plonk retard*
Android Cat
Perhaps she checked that already and rejected it because it wasn't supported
by her conclusions? :-P
henri
>Monica Pignotti wrote:
There's obviously a question of whether quality has increased. I
think the general tone of articles has been increasingly hostile since
TomKat blew up, although the TomKat-related articles are fairly low in
informational content, outside of the higher signal pieces about
Morton's book. It may not matter in terms of public impact.
I'm not interested in or really qualified to do a full scale media
study, constructing some method of objectively measuring "hostility"
of news articles, though, so even that is speculative.
But the claim (which I had made earlier) that the number of stories
has gone up simply doesn't jibe with objective reality. If they had
gone up, it would be a valid basis to claim at least correlation. They
haven't, though. It's a null result.
Google News has an interesting function:
http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=scientology&num=100&scoring=t&hl=en&um=1&sa=N&sugg=d&as_ldate=2000&as_hdate=2009&lnav=hist9
You can click the timeline graph to break it down by month or year.
I think there are probably a number of factors in Google News'
archives as compared to LexisNexis that make it even less reliable,
though. I know sources are added and removed all the time, and often
include junk sources like sites anyone can post "news" to. Similarly,
it would be baffled by Scientology's own occasional floods of goofy
press releases through things like PR Newswire.
In any case, though, looking at the record as it exists, I don't see
anything backing me up on my initial claims that there's been a flood
of negative press coverage of Scientology subsequent to Anonymous'
arrival. There's certainly been coverage of Anonymous itself:
There's also certainly negative coverage of Scientology, but there
always has been negative coverage of Scientology.
I don't subscribe to the idea that protesting Scientology is useless,
however, or that Anonymous' methods are bad or even compare negatively
to ARS' methods of protesting. Unless the rule is that protesting
Scientology is, itself, completely useless, I think getting more feet
and more signs out there than ARS ever did is still commendable.
henri
<androi...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Having set up the strawman that there should be an increase in the number of
>articles where the keyword "Scientology" occurs, you knock it down and give
>it a kick for good measure and declare that there's no point in further
>analysis. Bravo!
It wasn't a straw man. In fact, I made exactly that claim. I think
her fact check was directly responsive to my claim, although she
didn't put my name in the subject or call me an idiot or otherwise do
the usual things done on ars to indicate to someone that a post is
responding to their assertion. Certainly this is a breach of Usenet
etiquette of some sort, but it doesn't make a straw man.
John Dorsay
If Monica was refuting the claim to attack or discredit you, then
fine. You made a mistake and she called you on it. If that were
indeed the case, then it would not be a straw man.
But she is disputing a meaningless number to support her thesis that
Anonymous is ineffective or worse. It's a straw man.
John
thorazin...@gmail.com
> "Monica Pignotti" <pigno...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in
> messagenews:a06f354b-0012-408b...@z24g2000prf.googlegroups.com
> I'm calling bullshit, for a couple of reasons.
>
> The first is that I don't really trust you. You've lately become so rabidly
> obsessed with making others wrong that I'm fairly certain that you would fib
> just a little to bolster your arguement. Sorry.
>
>snip
I need to apologize for that statement. I've seen nothing to indicate
that Monica would lie.
bodythetan
1) Overly-broad date ranges
The date ranges you've selected cover not only the appearance of Anonymous
in the media but the six months preceding. Because of this it's impossible
to tell if the numbers have remained stable or if the total number of
articles with the keyword was below average in the first sixth months and
above in the second. Instead, you may wish to pull data on a month-by-month
basis in order to get a more detailed look at what's going on.
2) Casting the net too widely
The problem with a keyword search such as "Scientology" is that it includes
articles only tangenitally connected to Scientology. Every movie review and
gossip rag that mentions a person is a member is a member of the Co$ is
going to be rolled into these results. Keyword searches are blind to
semantics, and unfortunately, the only way to actually classify the results
is to tabulate them by hand.
3) Failing to document the character of the articles.
Without actually classifying the articles, it's impossible to get an
accurate look at which ones are actually about Scientology, which ones are
celebrity gossip, and which ones are simply press releases. Only one of
these categories is really significant in determining the validity of the
claim, and lumping the other two in will tend to bury the actual data.
Essentialy, there's a poor signal-to-noise ratio in your raw data, making it
impossible to draw definate conclusions one way or another.
-thatPTSkid
Jonnie Tyler
Right, it's all one big conspiracy. Fred, like any quack, is
scrambling to explain away null results. The fact is that there should
have been a huge upsurge if the grandiose claims being made were true,
but there wasn't. There's just no way you can explain this away. As
for what t-shuffle maintains, the tremendous upsurge in fluff pieces
clearly occurred between 2004 and 2005, where there was a very large
increase in articles on Scientology. After that, number of articles
has remained quite constant over the past 3 years with no dramatic
increases after Anonymous came on the scene. Of course, a more
detailed analysis of the content could be done, but it can't be
explained by the puff pieces because they had already increased.
===========
But it does beg the question as to why it remained constant. If you look at
the web stats in general, there was a huge upsurge with the Cruise thing in
2005 then a gradual drop back to normal. Yet, the number of articles has
remained at the peak they reached during that period. I wonder why they have
not dropped back to normal as well.
Jonnie Tyler
You may have a feeling, but it isn't showing up in the statistics.
True believers commonly have feelings that cannot be quantified which
is why a reality check is a good idea.
==========
Common, "normal" people have feelings too. Not everything bad is true
believers-like.
Jonnie Tyler
news:f6vf54tqd5tjhltjg...@4ax.com...
That doesn't really explain why there is a huge upsurge in news in 2008
according to Google, because what you say would be valid pre-2008 as well so
it would compensate.
What Nexis shows is that the upsurge in news that happened in Jan-Feb is not
significant enough to change the overall figure over a whole year, but for
these two months at least there certainly was an upsurge.
The stats for March, however, are already back to normal. I bet this would
be confirmed by the web stats. Surge in Jan-Feb and back to normal
subsequently. Another confirmation of that is the Message to Scientology
video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCbKv9yiLiQ. It went up to 2M+ view
overnight, but then more or less stagnated there. After five months it still
has not past the 3M mark.
Anonymous certainly had a huge short term impact, but overall interest seems
to have dropped somewhat subsequently. Even the actual numbers of protesters
are impossible to get nowadays. Enturbulation.org used to have a detailed
statistical page for the two first protests but not only have they not kept
up doing this from April on, they also removed the pages they had for Feb
and Mar. As for the impact in news the last Jun 14 protest had, it is
virtually nil.
Piltdown Man
Monica Pignotti <pign...@worldnet.att.net> wrote...
> Right, it's all one big conspiracy. Fred, like any quack, is
> scrambling to explain away null results. The fact is that there should
> have been a huge upsurge if the grandiose claims being made were true,
> but there wasn't. There's just no way you can explain this away. As
> for what t-shuffle maintains, the tremendous upsurge in fluff pieces
> clearly occurred between 2004 and 2005, where there was a very large
> increase in articles on Scientology. After that, number of articles
> has remained quite constant over the past 3 years with no dramatic
> increases after Anonymous came on the scene. Of course, a more
> detailed analysis of the content could be done, but it can't be
> explained by the puff pieces because they had already increased.
I'd suggest that if there is any causal link, it's the other way round. Why
did the "Anonymous" kiddies, who until some months ago were happy to just
annoy randomly selected victims on the internet with DOS attacks, pick
something as obscure as Scientology as a target, if if hadn't been for the
increase in pop-culture media coverage, probably largely thanks to the
TomKat antics? Their postings clearly show few of them have working
memories that go back for more than a year or so.
To put it in Scientological terms: I think they're at effect, not at cause.