Networks - Issue Crawler Results
The Govcom Foundation’s Issue Crawler software was used in mapping the network of actors which publishes information and opinions about space exploration on the web. Issue Crawler takes as input a list of web pages and then investigates the links which these starting points make to other sites. In this co-link analysis, the starting points were:
Planetary Society:http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/space_advocacy/roadmap.html
http://www.marssociety.org/portal/c/allExternalLinks
http://web.mit.edu/mitsps/index.html
http://space-frontier.org/Projects/Moon/lunarlinks.html
Web pages entered the results if at least two of the starting points linked to them. This process repeated itself once, for a crawl depth of two. The entire process was then reexecuted, representing two iterations of the method. In addition, the starting points were priveleged so that they remained in the results.
A unified cluster may be seen with the NASA sites in the upper right corner of Issue Crawler Map 1, with a number of other space agencies present in the lower right corner. The NASA sites link primarily to other NASA sites and to other space agencies. The directionality of the links between NASA and the non-governmental organizations implies that these groups cite NASA as a means of supporting their perspectives. For example, marsgravity.org and marsdrive.com both reference NASA’s initiatives which are particular to Mars.
The results of Issue Crawler Map 2 concur with those of the previous plot with respect to the practice of linking to space agency sites as a means of bolstering the credibility of an argument. Newly appearing on this plot are also two contractors in addition to SpaceX in the previous plot: Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. These companies receive links not only from advocacy groups such as the American Astronautical Society and the Planetary Society, but also from a trade society know as the Aerospace Industries Association. Given that advocacy groups also reference the AIA, evidence exists of a dependence on industry for information on exploration initiatives and technology.