Global Spider News Database: Media Representation of Human-Spider Encounters

A global database of online newspaper articles on human-spider encounters and spider bites. The dataset is expert-curated and described in a 2022 Scientific Data publication by Stefano Mammola et al. Version 2 includes corrections and new variables related to social media interactions.

Use Cases

• Analyze media sentiment and framing of human-spider encounters based on global news article content.
• Study the relationship between article sensationalism and social media engagement based on Facebook interaction metrics.
• Map geographic and temporal trends in spider-related news coverage globally.
• Train NLP models for classifying news articles about wildlife encounters.

Strengths

• Expert-curated and linked to a peer-reviewed publication in Scientific Data.
• Updated to a second version with corrections and new variables like Facebook interactions.
• Includes a detailed metadata file (Meta_Data_V2.pdf) explaining columns.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent from the provided input; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

Stefano Mammola

Collection Method

Expert curation of online newspaper articles.

Geography

Global