Finding Collective Events

Abstract

Researchers collecting data on collective events have often relied on ad hoc procedures and untested assumptions. A detailed comparison of different sources and data-gathering strategies for one month of events in one city challenges several assumptions made in prior studies. Police agencies and news sources have their own logics of jurisdiction, producing both incomplete and selective records of collective events. Different strategies for searching newspapers for stories about events yield very different results. News items about events do not occur at the same time as the events but are dispersed around them. All three of these patterns vary greatly from source to source and locale to locale. Comparisons of research findings between localities must more explicitly consider these selection issues. All data collection projects need to include methodological analyses of selection structures in their particular cases so that there can be some basis for comparison between studies.