C2: Results of the Cultural Study

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PROLOGUE AND ANTECEDENTS

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RESULTS OF THE CULTURAL STUDY

DETAILS OF THE RESULTS

PROSPECTS FOR A FOLLOWING STUDY

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LIST OF TABLES

TABLE OF CONTENTS

3. Results of the cultural study

Warning Since every individual's relative importance, faced with humankind's history, is left to personal judgment, the results of this research remain subjective although they do involve quantitative data. For this reason the same methodological rigor has not been applied to this part.

Therefore it is necessary to consider the majority of the results as indications about the presence of the Latin cultures. These data have been compared between them nor with the culture of the United States of America.

Why the United States and not all the English-speaking countries? Simply because it is the United States more than all the other English-speaking countries that is "excessively" present on the Internet, if compared with the other cultural groups. Therefore, we set as our goal to evaluate the presence of the Latin cultures on the Net throughout the comparison with the dominant culture on the Internet - "the United States one". A quick skimming of the statistics relative to the British individuals that appear in this study is sufficient to reveal that some sectors (such as sciences, song, literature, the historic and political characters, in particular) would present results much more favourable to the English-speaking countries if the whole English-speaking community were considered. This research should be developed with other partners, especially British.

There are four main components of this study:

the measuring of the evolutionary tendencies through re-using of the sample from the C1 study (March 1996).
the constitution of a new sample extended to all Latin cultures and slightly improved by a broader choice and a simplification of the categories.
the interpretation of the new results between cultural areas.
a more refined analysis of the distribution of quotations per language for a limited number of individuals, and the analysis of the source in English for certain Latin individuals.

3.1 Methodology for the selection of the new sample

This study, realized jointly by the Agence de la Francophonie, the Union Latine and FUNREDES, aims to estimate the place of Latin culture on the Internet in comparison with the US culture. The principle of the first study, done by FUNREDES in 1996, is taken up; improvements are brought to the methodology, although its essential mechanism remains the same (compared measurement of individuals expressing a certain degree of cultural belonging per category).

Although results involve some quantitative data, they do remain subjective, since every individuals's relative importance, faced with humankind's history, is left to personal judgment.

3.1.1 New categories

Comparing with the C1 study , the classification is reorganized in order to make the categories simplier and more consistent.

Scientific individuals (all historical periods)
Literature individuals (including the philosophers)
Movie individuals (every genre)
Visual arts individuals (every genres, including the choreography¹)
Music or song individuals (every genre)
Contemporary politics individuals
Historical individuals (except for the ones already mentioned in other categories)
Contemporary media individuals (except for politics)
Imaginary or fictional characters (all historical periods)

3.1.2 Colors conventions

A color convention is used to visualize the places of Latin character compared with characters from the United States and other cultures:

from the United States of America
from French-speaking culture
from Spanish-speaking culture
from Portuguese-speaking culture
from Italian-speaking culture
from Rumanian-speaking culture
from other cultures

Some individuals, impregnated with two different cultures, are identified by two colors (Eugene Ionesco, Tristan Tzara, etc.), although it is sometimes difficult to know how much a person has been "immersed" in a particular culture. As certain clasifications can appear arbitrary, we invite anyone able to give us clarifications to get in contact with the general coordinator of this study, Daniel Pimienta, <[email protected]>, and with Daniel Prado, <[email protected]>, who are respectively in charge of the linguistic and cultural supervision.

3.1.3 Measurement protocol

The calculation for latin individuals is carried out by using both the English form and the form in the individuals' language (some exceptions were conceded when the current use was favouring another form).

Presence of individuals is measured both by surname and name (or other applicable composed form). Obvious exception has been made for the fictional or imaginary characters,kept in the original forms ("Dracula", one word; "Madame Bovary", two words).

Names are written without diacritic signs and capital letters (except for bands with common names such as "the Doors"). This disposition penalizes individuals known by their name (as, for example, Michelangelo) or by their nickname (as Gutemberg); in addittion, it prevents measuring of some other individuals (like as Cleopatra or Lenin). To compensate this lack, we have added a general category of one-word individuals. Inside this category, we had to remove excessively common names (such as Ford or Pascal). The category of one-word individuals is obviously very approximative, since some names are more common than others. For example, the result for "washington" does not distinguish between the city, state and the individual, that for "lincoln" between the vehicle and the individual, and the one for "lennon" between the singer "john lennon" and the numerous other "lennon" existing on the Internet.

To measure expressions in inverted commas such as "rene descartes" we have used Altavista.

3.1.4 Orthographic and typographic criteria of research

"(alfred *) (north) whitehead" means that scores for "alfred * whitehead" and "north whitehead" are added.
the use of the asterisk (the sign "*") between two words allows AltaVista to count all forms, including the empty form between the two words. So "pierre * marie curie" gives: "pierre and marie curie", "pierre marie curie", "pierre and marie curie", etc.
"c+karl marx" gives the sum of "karl marx" and "carl marx".
"nicola(u)s copernic(us)" gives the sum of "nicolas copernic", "nicolaus copernicus" as well as "nicolas copernicus" and "nicolaus copernic".
"ann(e) rice" gives "ann rice" and "anne rice".
"(baruch)+(benedict) * spinoza" gives "baruch * spinoza" and "benedict spinoza".
"(jean) baptiste lully" gives "jean lully" and "baptiste lully" (form that, of course, includes the scores of "jean baptiste lully").

3.1.5 Note regarding the choice of the individuals

In this study, we were not aiming to take up all the celebrities from an encyclopedia or from the list of the proper nouns in a dictionary. Our intent was to create a sample heterogeneous and representative enough to evaluate, in a subjective way, if the Latin and United-states cultures are present on the webpages in a balanced way.

In spite of our efforts and improvements brought to the first study, several considerable individuals have surely been omitted. We invite all the people interested in this study to undertake these measurement themselves, according to the established protocol, and to inform us of any such omission.

It is also possible that some results are underestimated because we did not identify the spelling that would give a higher frequency. In particular, for names that we had to transliterate to the Latin spelling (from Chinese, Russian, Arabic, etc.), we used the most current spellings, but it is however possible that we missed some variations.

Having established these limitations, the results reveal however a good approximation of the situation on the WWW pages as far as the projection of different cultures is concerned.

3.1.6 Weighting of the results

To be able to transform some subjective results in summarized and usefull data, the results of search have been weighted in each category. The weighting is calculated while adding the places of the 5 first in each group.

To obtain a normed value (that is to say between 0 and 100 in this case), we divided 1500 with the obtained value. Therefore a grade of 100 indicates placement on one of the first 5 positions (1500/(1+2+3+4+5) = 100).

N.B. : In a limited number of cases, we added a value that was out of classification in order to measure groups that have only four individuals in the category. Moreover, we have sometimes taken in consideration only the first four values. In order to obtain results between 0 and 100, we then calculated the normed value dividing 1000 with our value.

3.2 Results of the measurements per categories

N.B. : In order not to overload the screen, we have placed the tables with the results on separate pages. You can access data of each table by simply clicking on the respective title.

Table 1 : Scientific individuals

The French-speaking science is very well placed in comparison with the science from the United-States; It is only thanks to the presence of two media individuals that the United-States preserve a light advance according to our weighting algorithm. With the established selection, the Rumanian science is placed in front of the science from Spanish oand Portuguese speaking areas.

In light of our results, this sector appears to be the less complete one, along with the one on the media characters.

Table 2 : Literature individuals

The English literature has the upper hand, followed by the literature from the United-States and a noteworthy French-speaking presence. A better self-projection of the Spanish literature should permit it to increase considerably its presence, since many individuals have acquired a great fame that is, however,not well reflected in this result.

Table 3 : Movie individuals

The presence of the United-States is crushing - and even more if the English-speaking world is considered as one. It is necessary to notice that it is contemporary movies that caused this invasion: exceptional figures of the movies history, as Chaplin, Bergman or Fellini, are relegated, indeed, in the second half of the table. The relatively low presence of the Italian cinema, surpassed by the Spanish movies in our weighting, makes us wonder. With this methodology, it is difficult to distinguish an art movie from various commercial movies; unfortunatelly, it is this schism that explains our results.

Table 4 : Music or song idividuals

Without the Céline Dion phenomenon, the French-speaking group would be behind the Portuguese one. English and people from the United-States are dominating the "showbusiness", reality that the Web faithfully reflects. The Italian score is entirely due to the classical music, and it is already possible to plan a strong growth on the Internet for the presence of Spanish and Portuguese speaking groups .

Table 5 : Visual arts individuals

We thought to find the Italian art and the surprise comes from a tremendous presence of the Spanish-speaking art group. The result for the United-States is so low that we were afraid of having forgotten some important individuals of their visual arts...

Table 6 : Contemporary politics individuals

The incontestable political weight of the United States of America reflects itself completely in the result. The weight of all of the past presidents of this country is very significant. It is important to notice very high score of Saddam Hussein - which is reflection of the importance attributed to him by the United States' medias - as well as of Castro and Guevara, that are dominating the hispanity. The respectable size of Brazil has been translated in the results.

Table 7 : Contemporary media individuals

We will no't comment this table because a significant number of media characters is missing and a thorough research for them is yet to be undertaken.

Table 8 : General hit parade for two-words names

(Also see in Appendix 2 the overall hit parade for simple names)

Table 9 : Fictitious or imaginary characters

We do not know if Rumanians will be delighted to find out that their most cybercelebrated individual is an imaginary character who is, moreover, dominating the Latin group and very close to Superman! Imaginary and fictional characters of the latinity represent together a considerable contribution to the virtual totality.