Visualizing changes to US federal environmental agency websites, 2016-2020.

Websites have become the primary means by which the US federal government communicates about its operations and presents information for public consumption. However, the alteration or removal of critical information from these sites is often entirely legal and done without the public's awarenes...

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Autores principales:	Eric Nost, Gretchen Gehrke, Grace Poudrier, Aaron Lemelin, Marcy Beck, Sara Wylie, Environmental Data & Governance Initiative
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2021
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/0392006ee3d94f44b42b0ec23b832743
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:0392006ee3d94f44b42b0ec23b8327432021-12-02T20:11:26ZVisualizing changes to US federal environmental agency websites, 2016-2020.1932-620310.1371/journal.pone.0246450https://doaj.org/article/0392006ee3d94f44b42b0ec23b8327432021-01-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0246450https://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203Websites have become the primary means by which the US federal government communicates about its operations and presents information for public consumption. However, the alteration or removal of critical information from these sites is often entirely legal and done without the public's awareness. Relative to paper records, websites enable governments to shape public understanding in quick, scalable, and permissible ways. During the Trump administration, website changes indicative of climate denial prompted civil society organizations to develop tools for tracking online government information sources. We in the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative (EDGI) illustrate how five data visualization techniques can be used to document and analyze changes to government websites. We examine a large sample of websites of US federal environmental agencies and show that between 2016 and 2020: 1) the use of the term "climate change" decreased by an estimated 38%; 2) access to as much as 20% of the Environmental Protection Agency's website was removed; 3) changes were made more to Cabinet agencies' websites and to highly visible pages. In formulating ways to visualize and assess the alteration of websites, our study lays important groundwork for both systematically tracking changes and holding officials more accountable for their web practices. Our techniques enable researchers and watchdog groups alike to operate at the scale necessary to understand the breadth of impact an administration can have on the online face of government.Eric NostGretchen GehrkeGrace PoudrierAaron LemelinMarcy BeckSara WylieEnvironmental Data & Governance InitiativePublic Library of Science (PLoS)articleMedicineRScienceQENPLoS ONE, Vol 16, Iss 2, p e0246450 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Eric Nost Gretchen Gehrke Grace Poudrier Aaron Lemelin Marcy Beck Sara Wylie Environmental Data & Governance Initiative Visualizing changes to US federal environmental agency websites, 2016-2020.
description	Websites have become the primary means by which the US federal government communicates about its operations and presents information for public consumption. However, the alteration or removal of critical information from these sites is often entirely legal and done without the public's awareness. Relative to paper records, websites enable governments to shape public understanding in quick, scalable, and permissible ways. During the Trump administration, website changes indicative of climate denial prompted civil society organizations to develop tools for tracking online government information sources. We in the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative (EDGI) illustrate how five data visualization techniques can be used to document and analyze changes to government websites. We examine a large sample of websites of US federal environmental agencies and show that between 2016 and 2020: 1) the use of the term "climate change" decreased by an estimated 38%; 2) access to as much as 20% of the Environmental Protection Agency's website was removed; 3) changes were made more to Cabinet agencies' websites and to highly visible pages. In formulating ways to visualize and assess the alteration of websites, our study lays important groundwork for both systematically tracking changes and holding officials more accountable for their web practices. Our techniques enable researchers and watchdog groups alike to operate at the scale necessary to understand the breadth of impact an administration can have on the online face of government.
format	article
author	Eric Nost Gretchen Gehrke Grace Poudrier Aaron Lemelin Marcy Beck Sara Wylie Environmental Data & Governance Initiative
author_facet	Eric Nost Gretchen Gehrke Grace Poudrier Aaron Lemelin Marcy Beck Sara Wylie Environmental Data & Governance Initiative
author_sort	Eric Nost
title	Visualizing changes to US federal environmental agency websites, 2016-2020.
title_short	Visualizing changes to US federal environmental agency websites, 2016-2020.
title_full	Visualizing changes to US federal environmental agency websites, 2016-2020.
title_fullStr	Visualizing changes to US federal environmental agency websites, 2016-2020.
title_full_unstemmed	Visualizing changes to US federal environmental agency websites, 2016-2020.
title_sort	visualizing changes to us federal environmental agency websites, 2016-2020.
publisher	Public Library of Science (PLoS)
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/0392006ee3d94f44b42b0ec23b832743
work_keys_str_mv	AT ericnost visualizingchangestousfederalenvironmentalagencywebsites20162020 AT gretchengehrke visualizingchangestousfederalenvironmentalagencywebsites20162020 AT gracepoudrier visualizingchangestousfederalenvironmentalagencywebsites20162020 AT aaronlemelin visualizingchangestousfederalenvironmentalagencywebsites20162020 AT marcybeck visualizingchangestousfederalenvironmentalagencywebsites20162020 AT sarawylie visualizingchangestousfederalenvironmentalagencywebsites20162020 AT environmentaldatagovernanceinitiative visualizingchangestousfederalenvironmentalagencywebsites20162020
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Visualizing changes to US federal environmental agency websites, 2016-2020.

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