DIPITY-timeline. This timeline is for your own investigation.
Hydraulisk frackturering kontrovers on Dipity.
Graph showing the development of the controversy
EIA (US. Energy Information Administration) history and projected extraction of shale gas and other natural gasses. Note the increase in US shale gas production since the years 2006-10, and the continuing decline in "associated with oil"(gas extracted through oil wells). Note also that offshore extraction is decreasing, just like the projection from Denmark.
During what is commonly referred to as the US "Shale Gas Boom" in 2008, where licenses obtained for shale gas drilling tripled from 1990 level (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shale_gas_in_the_United_States), an increased interest on the net can also be identified.
Below are two graphs representing the average search volume on google for different central keywords. The graph doesn't indicate any number of searches, but indicate a search behavior on google, meaning that variations over time can be detected. Look at the first graph. Here we have typed four central keywords from the hydraulic fracturing controversy, namely shale gas, hydraulic fracturing, fracking and gasland (referring to the documentary) and compared it with searches on the keyword "climate change". Note that while climate change is controversial/interesting throughout the decade, themes within the hydraulic fracturing controversy only manifest an increased change in search behavior after 2008. The terrain seem to become interesting for a larger audience at the time when shale gas extraction is booming in the US, licenses are given to companies and people in the US actually see the positive and negative changes in their communities. Or so we suspect.
This data doesn't give us a reason for saying so, it doesn't deliver an answer to a why, but it indicates that hydraulic fracturing was becoming interesting to a wider public at a very specific time, marking the start of our controversy. A moment that can be roughly associated to an increased production in the US.
No wonder that Danish newspapers didn't get a glimpse of the snowball before a year later, when the same issues, possibilities and fears grew from the shale layers beneath Europe.
The second graph is basically the same as the first, but enlarged and withdrawn from the climate change controversy. That leaves us with four very relevant keywords for the controversy. The following distinctions are based on qualitative research but are also manifest in the word-clouds, tag-clouds and word-trees presented under the headings ACTORS and DANISH DEBATE. "Shale gas" is interesting to everyone engaged in this controversy. That is what we, you and they are discussing, finding, fighting drilling after and last but not least using. "Hydraulic fracturing" is of course the technical term for the drilling method and is used by everyone, from journalists to company executives. "Fracking" is the commonly public word for hydraulic fracturing, and slang for "sex", mainly used by journalists, the public and perverts surfing the net. As a sociological category these last ones are accounted for here exactly because the date shows changes in research behavior, and since their is no change to detect before after 2008, we suspect that this keyword actually designates a public interest in drilling for shale gas, and not an increased interest in human intercourse. We plotted in "Gasland", the name of the documentary, mainly because we wanted to see if there was any coherence with the interest in hydraulic fracturing, and because we suspect that others like ourselves became interested in this issue because they saw images of burning water.
Now if you look at the second graph, what becomes interesting is how shale gas seems to be of interest to web users on google almost two years before the rest of the keywords.
Is it maybe because the public got interested in the technicalities after the increased production had taken place, and does it indicate that while licenses in the US were given, the public looked on passively, not because of a lack in interest for their communities, their water or their countries economic well being, but because the controversial issues were simply black boxed before, out of public geographies? And is it fair to say that hydraulic fracturing, only after two years of increased shale gas production became a matter of concern for the public, the newspapers, documentary makers and activists?
Three of our before mentioned categories of actors had their hands in the mud well before the public started to search the web for information: The Governments, the Scientists and (but you've guessed that) the Companies.
Maybe this seem to offer an explanation as to why the network of actors seems to cluster these before mentioned categories together, and why activists are forming networks so scarcely interconnected to each other and the rest of the main actors: the media, the public and the activists are two highly active shale gas extracting and hydraulic fracturing years behind.
During what is commonly referred to as the US "Shale Gas Boom" in 2008, where licenses obtained for shale gas drilling tripled from 1990 level (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shale_gas_in_the_United_States), an increased interest on the net can also be identified.
Below are two graphs representing the average search volume on google for different central keywords. The graph doesn't indicate any number of searches, but indicate a search behavior on google, meaning that variations over time can be detected. Look at the first graph. Here we have typed four central keywords from the hydraulic fracturing controversy, namely shale gas, hydraulic fracturing, fracking and gasland (referring to the documentary) and compared it with searches on the keyword "climate change". Note that while climate change is controversial/interesting throughout the decade, themes within the hydraulic fracturing controversy only manifest an increased change in search behavior after 2008. The terrain seem to become interesting for a larger audience at the time when shale gas extraction is booming in the US, licenses are given to companies and people in the US actually see the positive and negative changes in their communities. Or so we suspect.
This data doesn't give us a reason for saying so, it doesn't deliver an answer to a why, but it indicates that hydraulic fracturing was becoming interesting to a wider public at a very specific time, marking the start of our controversy. A moment that can be roughly associated to an increased production in the US.
No wonder that Danish newspapers didn't get a glimpse of the snowball before a year later, when the same issues, possibilities and fears grew from the shale layers beneath Europe.
The second graph is basically the same as the first, but enlarged and withdrawn from the climate change controversy. That leaves us with four very relevant keywords for the controversy. The following distinctions are based on qualitative research but are also manifest in the word-clouds, tag-clouds and word-trees presented under the headings ACTORS and DANISH DEBATE. "Shale gas" is interesting to everyone engaged in this controversy. That is what we, you and they are discussing, finding, fighting drilling after and last but not least using. "Hydraulic fracturing" is of course the technical term for the drilling method and is used by everyone, from journalists to company executives. "Fracking" is the commonly public word for hydraulic fracturing, and slang for "sex", mainly used by journalists, the public and perverts surfing the net. As a sociological category these last ones are accounted for here exactly because the date shows changes in research behavior, and since their is no change to detect before after 2008, we suspect that this keyword actually designates a public interest in drilling for shale gas, and not an increased interest in human intercourse. We plotted in "Gasland", the name of the documentary, mainly because we wanted to see if there was any coherence with the interest in hydraulic fracturing, and because we suspect that others like ourselves became interested in this issue because they saw images of burning water.
Now if you look at the second graph, what becomes interesting is how shale gas seems to be of interest to web users on google almost two years before the rest of the keywords.
Is it maybe because the public got interested in the technicalities after the increased production had taken place, and does it indicate that while licenses in the US were given, the public looked on passively, not because of a lack in interest for their communities, their water or their countries economic well being, but because the controversial issues were simply black boxed before, out of public geographies? And is it fair to say that hydraulic fracturing, only after two years of increased shale gas production became a matter of concern for the public, the newspapers, documentary makers and activists?
Three of our before mentioned categories of actors had their hands in the mud well before the public started to search the web for information: The Governments, the Scientists and (but you've guessed that) the Companies.
Maybe this seem to offer an explanation as to why the network of actors seems to cluster these before mentioned categories together, and why activists are forming networks so scarcely interconnected to each other and the rest of the main actors: the media, the public and the activists are two highly active shale gas extracting and hydraulic fracturing years behind.
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