Luz Areli Contreras & Julio Mejia “Dataset of Popular Videos in the Dominican Republic to Analyze Portrayal of Relationships”
Mentor: Heidi Luft, Nursing
The Dominican Republic (DR) has consistently had one of the highest rates of intimate partner femicide in Latin America. Despite evidence that media narratives can influence social perception and response to intimate partner violence, research that examines the portrayal of and narratives about intimate relationships within the most common media platforms in the DR is extremely limited.The aims of this study are to describe the innovative methods used to create a comprehensive dataset of the most popular videos on DR YouTube and preliminary findings. Over 30 days between October and November of 2019 we recorded the top twenty videos in the “Top Trends” list on DR YouTube at 9am, 1pm, 7pm, and 11pm Atlantic Standard Time. We collected the following information about each video at each time point: title, link, # likes, # dislikes, # views, YouTube category, # comments, name of the sending channel, and # of subscribers of the sending channel. We then determined the frequency that each video appeared in each of the top twenty and top three positions of the “Top Trends” list. A total of 421 unique videos were identified, 79 of which appeared at least once among the top three positions of the “Top Trends” list. The most common genres among videos were music and comedy. Among videos within the comedy genre, most were amateur videos. Development of a comprehensive dataset of DR YouTube videos in the top twenty positions of the “Top Trends” list, and initial analysis, suggest an important role of music, comedy, and local celebrities in conveying messages to viewers. Future qualitative analysis should focus on examination and comparison of how relationships are portrayed and discussed within the most popular music and comedy videos included in this dataset.
This research needs to be connected to become more interpretive. Let me ask this: If you have a ranking of similar countries and you compare their IRF rates and with your media findings for these countries you compared, you would have something to conclude. What if you find that country X has a very low rate of IRF, yet it has a similar incidence rate in the media, based on your criteria, then you have a problem with your conclusions. By simply doing a study on the DR only, and no comparisons, raises many questions of causality.
I love this idea, and encourage you to move forward with it to compare with other countries.