How to browse the Corpus Ayotzinapa?
Go to the main menu of this page and click on “Search”. You will find a table with the retrieved materials presented in nine columns: Id, fecha (date), medio (news outlet), titular (headline), sección (section), ubicación, (placement), página (page), modalidad de discurso ajeno (alien speech modality), and digitalización (digitization). At the top of the table, you can select the number of records to display: groups of ten entries, twenty, forty, fifty, or all of them at once.
The “Id” column contains a unique identification code for each record. The “titular” column includes a transcription of the main title of the journalistic text. The columns “fecha” (date), “medio” (news outlet), “sección” (section), and “página” (page) indicate, respectively, the date, the newspaper, the section, and the page where the headline was published. The “ubicación” (placement) column specifies the type of page on which the text appeared (front page, back page, inside pages, etc.) The “modalidad del discurso ajeno” column indicates the alien speech modality in which the headline was formulated. Finally, the last column, “digitalización”, contains a small blue icon that can be clicked to open a new window displaying a digitized version of the full news article.
The records displayed in the table vary according to the query made. There are two types of searches: word search and filter.
Word search
In the box next to “Search,” type the word or words you want to find. The results will automatically appear in the table. The system will search simultaneously across the columns corresponding to the identification code (“Id”), fecha (date), medio (news outlet), titular (headline), sección (section), ubicación (placement), página (page), and modalidad de discurso ajeno (alien speech modality).
The search is exact, meaning it will search for the exact sequence of letters you enter. For example, if you enter “decir” (to say), the system will return all records where that exact sequence appears, but it will not show variations of the verb, such as “dijo” (said) or “dijeron” (they said). The minimum unit for this type of search is one character.
The search engine does not distinguish between uppercase and lowercase letters, but it does differentiate between characters with accent marks and those without, such as (é) and (e), or (n) and (ñ).
Filter query
- To show the search options, click on the grey box with the “Add Condition” legend under the phrase “Custom Search Builder”.
2. It will show three more gray boxes, “Data”, “Condition” and “Value”.
3. “Data” selects the field where the filter will be applied: identification code (“Id”), fecha (date), medio (news outlet), titular (headline), sección (section), ubicación (placement), página (page) and modalidad de discurso ajeno (alien speech modality).
4.“Condition” selects the comparative filter to be used: “equals to”, “different from”, “starts with”, “contains” or “ends with”.
5. “Value” completes the instruction. If “Condition” is “equals to” or “different from”, you must choose from one of the offered options, which are all the different records corresponding to the selected option in “Data”. Nevertheless, if “starts with”, “contains” or “ends with” were chosen in “Condition”, a blank space will be provided for you to write what you need according to the selected criteria.
For example, if you wish to recover every record from the El Universal newspaper, select “medio” (news outlet) in the “Data” box, “equals to” in the “Condition” box and “El Universal” in the “Value” box.
However, if you wish to search for every headline that contains the word “violencia” (violence), select “headline” in the “Data” box, “contains” in the “Condition” box and write “violencia” in the “Value” input space.
To add new filters to the results, click on the “add condition” box again.
You can add every additional filter you wish by using the “And” operator to narrow the search or “Or” to widen it.
Let’s say you wish to recover every headline from the El Universal newspaper that contains “violencia”. Make sure you select the “And” operator and apply the corresponding filters in the news outlet and headline. For the first one, select “medio” in “Data”, “equals to” in “Condition” and “El Universal” in “Value”. For the second filter, you should select “titular” in “Data”, “contains” in “Condition” and write “violencia” in the “Value” input space.
However, if you wish to recover every headline from both La Jornada and El Universal, click the “And” button to get the “OR” operator and select the corresponding options for El Universal: “medio” in “Data”, “equals to” in “Condition” and “El Universal” in “Value”. Then, click on the “Add Condition” sign to add the second filter and select “medio” in “Data”, “equals to” in “Condition” and “La Jornada” in “Value”.
We suggest you read the “General information” section for more information on the corpus.