political-commercial-collection-project

 

 

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The Carl Albert Center Archives, along with Harvard University and the University of Iowa, was awarded collaborative research grant funds from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for the project “Understanding the Evolution of Political Campaign Advertisements over the Last Century”.

The project has three specific aims:

1. Make a large underutilized collection of over 120,000 political ads (1912-2016) currently housed at the Carl Albert Center suitable for academic and non-academic research;
2. Understand the evolution of political advertising, especially as it pertains to issue advocacy and gender/minority representations prior to 1996; and,
3. Promote interdisciplinary graduate and undergraduate education in audiovisual analysis at research and teaching institutions. ​

The Carl Albert Center Archives’ task focused on the first aim (1) by providing reliable content for collaborator analysis. The project has provided invaluable insights and knowledge, despite the initial challenges encountered. This page was created to document our processes and share solutions which may benefit other collection entities.

This projects utilizes various workflow tools, Python scripting templates, resources, practice exercises and other useful tools developed throughout our initial phases of work.

key research components

• Address the challenges of insufficient documentation, undefined workflows, and limited funding in managing the growing collection of political ads.
• Develop workflows to effectively manage the existing collection of political ads.
• Define strategies to ensure the long-term accessibility and usability of its digital political ad collection.
• Explore and define practical solutions and best practices in managing and preserving large archival collections in academic settings.

table of contents

introduction

• overview of case study/background of collection

entropy and archival dis-order

• collection growth-the internet effect and backlogs
• issues with system infrastructure and normalization
• initial codes and processes-folder of tools

control methods

• unified component identification P_COPY-OID
• data cleansing, aggregation, integration, forensic tools

implementation-workflow-phase 1 processes

• implementation and workflow
• sample student access ‘groups A-B’ processes
• sample student access ‘groups C’ processes
• sample student access ‘groups QA-Rover-1’ processes
• sample student access ‘groups QA-Rover-1 processes

updates and issues – further research

• physical inspection – issues – solutions

appendices

• appendix 1 – building a python environment, lists and instructions
• appendix 2 – common workflows for audio and video file transcriptions
• appendix 3 follow-up documentation (updated 2023-10-02)
• [appendix 4 additional resources]
• [general references]

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