The Global Resonance of Human Rights: What Google Trends Can Tell Us

Abstract

Where is the human rights discourse most resonant? We use aggregated cross-national Google search data to test two divergent accounts of why human rights appeal to some populations but not others. The top-down model predicts that nationwide interest in human rights is attributable mainly to external factors such as foreign direct investment, transnational NGO campaigns, or international legalization, whereas the bottom-up model highlights the importance of internal factors such as economic growth and persistent repression. We find more evidence for the latter model: not only is interest in human rights more concentrated in the Global South, but the discourse is also most resonant where people face regular state violence. In drawing these inferences, this article confronts high-level debates over whether human rights will remain relevant in the future, and whether the discourse still animates counter-hegemonic modes of resistance. The answer to both questions, our research suggests, is “yes.”

Marburg Virus Outbreak and a New Conspiracy Theory: Findings from a Comprehensive Analysis and Forecasting of Web Behavior

“…Google Trends data has been of interest to researchers for the mining and analysis of the underlying web behavior related to various emerging technologies [153,154], global affairs [155,156], humanitarian issues [157,158], societal problems [159,160], and needs of different diversity groups [161,162]. In the last decade and a half, the utilization, applications, and use cases of Google Trends to mine, monitor, interpret, and analyze web behavior during epidemics, pandemics, and virus outbreaks have attracted a significant amount of attention from researchers from different disciplines [163][164][165][166][167][168].…”