AsianDOC Electronic Newsletter 1:3 (October 1998)
Table 1 The volume of WWW information about Asian countries, as recorded by Altavista database since Feb 97 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Country Feb 97 Sep 97 Dec 97 Mar 98 Jun 98 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- MIDDLE EAST www pages www pages www pages www pages www pages Afghanistan 30,000 39,000 10,000 53,000 70,000 Bahrain 30,000 36,000 10,000 55,000 64,000 Iran 60,000 85,000 21,000 127,000 167,000 Iraq 20,000 37,000 11,000 105,000 137,000 Israel 500,000 584,000 113,000 578,000 671,000 Jordan 20,000 23,000 70,000 415,000 460,000 Kurdistan 5,000 3,000 1,000 7,000 8,000 Kuwait 30,000 38,000 11,000 94,000 105,000 Lebanon 20,000 90,000 24,000 148,000 168,000 Oman 20,000 27,000 6,000 55,000 60,000 Palestine 20,000 41,000 10,000 61,000 70,000 Qatar 10,000 19,000 5,000 46,000 53,000 Saudi Arabia 30,000 30,000 82,000 98,000 127,000 Syria 20,000 35,000 8,000 68,000 88,000 Turkey 104,000 224,000 53,000 275,000 361,000 United Arab Emirates 10,000 15,000 41,000 51,000 70,000 Yemen 10,000 14,000 4,000 37,000 50,000 TOTAL 939,000 1,340,000 480,000 2,273,000 2,729,000 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- CAUCASUS Armenia 30,000 40,000 10,000 46,000 60,000 Azerbaijan 10,000 24,000 6,000 33,000 43,000 Chechnya 6,000 9,000 2,000 12,000 13,000 Georgia 4,000 5,000 2,000 3,000 2,000 TOTAL 50,000 78,000 20,000 94,000 118,000 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- CENTRAL ASIA Kazakhstan 20,000 17,000 6,000 41,000 54,000 Kyrgyzstan 7,000 8,000 2,000 20,000 29,000 Tajikistan 7,000 8,000 2,000 20,000 26,000 Turkmenistan 7,000 8,000 2,000 25,000 35,000 Uzbekistan 10,000 13,000 4,000 35,000 48,000 TOTAL 51,000 54,000 16,000 141,000 192,000 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- SOUTH ASIA Bangladesh 50,000 61,000 17,000 74,000 96,000 Bhutan 10,000 17,000 5,000 27,000 36,000 India 404,000 628,000 175,000 636,000 776,000 Kashmir 8,000 10,000 4,000 19,000 24,000 Ladakh n/a n/a n/a 3,000 4,000 Maldives 10,000 12,000 3,000 24,000 34,000 Nepal 60,000 62,000 15,000 76,000 99,000 Pakistan 60,000 83,000 31,000 150,000 196,000 Sikkim n/a n/a n/a 4,000 5,000 Sri Lanka 30,000 27,000 80,000 95,000 120,000 TOTAL 632,000 900,000 330,000 1,108,000 1,390,000 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- SOUTH EAST ASIA Brunei 20,000 30,000 8,000 43,000 56,000 Burma 30,000 43,000 12,000 47,000 58,000 Cambodia 30,000 39,100 13,000 62,000 80,000 East Timor 4,000 4,000 14,000 16,000 21,000 Indonesia 202,000 240,000 57,000 267,000 328,000 Laos 30,000 25,200 7,000 40,000 53,000 Malaysia 202,000 265,000 63,000 270,000 335,000 Philippines 100,000 152,000 41,000 215,000 258,000 Singapore 403,620 591,000 158,000 437,000 536,000 Thailand 202,000 270,000 63,000 272,000 328,000 Vietnam 104,000 202,000 46,000 238,000 293,000 TOTAL 1,327,000 1,861,000 482,000 1,907,000 2,346,000 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- EAST ASIA China 710,000 970,000 231,000 845,000 1,110,000 E.Turkistan n/a n/a n/a 981 425 Hong Kong 202,000 175,000 424,000 464,000 559,000 Japan 1,003,000 2,252,000 1,422,000 1,280,000 1,557,000 Korea (North) 10,000 10,000 33,000 39,000 50,000 Korea (South) 20,000 27,000 74,000 90,000 116,000 Macau 20,000 21,000 5,000 29,000 45,000 Mongolia 10,000 22,000 6,000 42,000 57,000 Siberia 10,000 19,000 4,000 32,000 39,000 Taiwan 202,000 294,000 69,000 332,000 406,000 Tibet 39,000 44,000 10,000 49,000 62,000 TOTAL 2,226,000 3,834,000 2,278,000 3,203,000 4,001,000 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ASIA TOTAL 5,225,000 8,067,000 3,606,000 8,726,000 10,776,000 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Source: Ciolek 1998a, Table 003These data lead to a number of conclusions. Firstly, we can see that the volume of online information about the Asian countries is already large. To illustrate: in June 1998 it amounted to about 10.8 million Web pages. Since an average Web document is about 15 Kb long (Ciolek 1998a, Tables 008 & 009) we can calculate that the total volume of Asia related information in June 98 was 162Gb. Had this information been printed, it would generate over 40.5 mln A4 pages. If these pages were stacked in a single column of paper, their cumulative height (assuming 5 sheets per mm) would be approximately 8.1 km. In other words, the current volume of online information pertaining to Asia is as big as the Himalayan peak, Annapurna (The Times Atlas of the World 1994). Moreover, this mountain of electronic information continues to grow. This point will be looked at in some detail later in the paper. Another two observations which stem from Table 1 pertain to the method of the data collection. Column 3 in Table 1 shows that in December 1997 the there was a large drop in the number of Web pages dealing with all studied Asian countries. This decline seems to be caused by the December 1997 reorganisation (Bharat & Broder 1998) of the Altavista's database operations. This implies that data collected on the Internet should always be analysed in context of a series of related observations. Also, Table 1 raises another issue. The numbers of web pages about country names which have homonyms suggest that these cases need to be treated with caution. For instance, the number of web pages dealing with the Kingdom of Jordan appears to be overestimated because the keyword also a homonym for a number of other geographic locations in Australia and North America as well as for an Anglo-Saxon surname. Conversely, the data for Georgia are underestimated. In our study they are derived from a search combining keywords 'Georgia' and 'Republic'. This is because the name of the Caucasian country also refers to the name of a state in the US as well as to a popular feminine name. All these homonyms tend to greatly inflate the overall figures for 'Georgia' and are very difficult to separate from each other. Similarly, while the use of the capitalised keywords such as 'China' and 'Turkey' focuses Altavista searches on materials dealing primarely with the geographical entities, there is a possibility that they occasionally point to pages dealing with 'China and Porcelain' as well as 'Turkey and Ham Dishes'. The best technique for elimination of these unwelcome side-effects is not known at the moment. Perhaps some calculations on the strength of the correlations between frequencies of occurence of terms 'Jordan/Jordanian', 'Turkey/Turkish' and so forth could be used here.
Table 2 The volume of WWW information about Asian regions, as recorded by Altavista database since Feb 97 -------------------------------------------------------------------- Country Feb 97 Sep 97 Dec 97 Mar 98 Jun 98 -------------------------------------------------------------------- MIDDLE EAST 18% 17% 13% 26% 25% CAUCASUS 1% 1% 0.5% 1% 1% CENTRAL ASIA 1% 1% 0.5% 2% 2% SOUTH ASIA 12% 11% 9% 13% 13% SOUTH EAST ASIA 25% 23% 13% 22% 22% EAST ASIA 43% 47% 63% 37% 37% -------------------------------------------------------------------- ASIA TOTAL 100% 100% 99% 101% 100% -------------------------------------------------------------------- Source: Table 1Table 2 points to a consistency with which information about countries of Asia is produced world- wide. While the overall volume of web pages dealing with countries of the six geoographical regions listed in Table 2 steadily increases, the regions' share of that volume remains, fairly stable. The growth rates in the Web-based information, however, are not constant across the regions (Table 3). The lower monthly percentage rates are characteristic of the online information on South East Asia and East Asia. Higher and more energetic rates are displayed by the pages dealing with countries of the Middle East and Central Asia.
Table 3
The volume and growth of WWW information about Asian regions,
as recorded by Altavista database since Feb 97
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Country Feb 97 Jun 98 Growth
www pages www pages Feb97/Jun98 %/month
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
MIDDLE EAST 939,000 2,729,000 191% 11.9
CAUCASUS 50,000 118,000 136% 8.5
CENTRAL ASIA 51,000 192,000 276% 17.2
SOUTH ASIA 632,000 1,390,000 120% 7.5
SOUTH EAST ASIA 1,327,000 2,346,000 77% 4.8
EAST ASIA 2,226,000 4,001,000 80% 5.0
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
ASIA TOTAL 5,225,000 10,776,000 106% 6.6
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Table 1
A question can also be asked (see Table 4 and 6) about
the largest and the smallest amounts of online information
pertaining to Asian countries.
Table 4 Ten countries discussed by the largest number of web pages as recorded by Altavista database since Feb 97 --------------------------------------------------- Country Feb 97 Jun 98 --------------------------------------------------- Japan 1,003,000 1,557,000 China 710,000 1,110,000 India 404,000 776,000 Israel 500,000 671,000 Hong Kong 202,000 559,000 Singapore 403,620 536,000 Jordan 20,000 460,000 Taiwan 202,000 406,000 Turkey 104,000 361,000 Indonesia 202,000 328,000 --------------------------------------------------- ASIA TOTAL 5,225,000 10,776,000 --------------------------------------------------- Source: Table 1Clearly, Japan is the Internet's draw card. In June 1998 it attracted over 1.5 million of pages or 14.4% of Asia-related online information. The runner-up is China, with 1.1 million pages (10.3%). Other countries play a role too, with some of them, like Jordan, not necessarily meriting their high placement (see discussion above). Table 5 provides data on the opposite phenomenon, namely, relative online obscurity.
Table 5 Ten countries discussed by the least number of web pages as recorded by Altavista database since Feb 97 --------------------------------------------------- Country Feb 97 Jun 98 --------------------------------------------------- E.Turkistan 981* 425 Ladakh 3,000* 4,000 Sikkim 4,000* 5,000 Kurdistan 5,000 8,000 Chechnya 6,000 13,000 East Timor 4,000 21,000 Kashmir 8,000 24,000 Tajikistan 7,000 26,000 Maldives 10,000 34,000 Turkmenistan 7,000 35,000 --------------------------------------------------- ASIA TOTAL 5,225,000 10,776,000 --------------------------------------------------- Source: Table 1 * Data from Mar 1998Table 5 indicates that subsidiary or geographically isolated areas are less often discussed on the Web. Also, territories with 'tricky' or inconsistent spellings (e.g. Ladakh, Chechnya, Tajikistan) may have been underrepresented in our sample because their names are not standardised. Information is also available (see Table 6) about the growth rates for the cyberspace dealing with individual Asian countries.
Table 6 The growth in the volume of WWW information about Asian countries, as recorded by Altavista database since Feb 97 -------------------------------------------------------- Country % growth/month* -------------------------------------------------------- Singapore 2.0 Israel 2.1 Japan 3.4 China 3.5 Tibet 3.7 Kurdistan 3.7 Indonesia 3.8 Thailand 3.8 Malaysia 4.0 Nepal 4.0 Laos 4.7 Bangladesh 5.7 India 5.7 Burma 5.8 Armenia 6.2** Taiwan 6.2** Bahrain 7.0 Chechnya 7.3 Macau 7.8 Afghanistan 8.3 Sikkim 8.3*** Philippines 9.8 Cambodia 10.4 Kazakhstan 10.6 Hong Kong 11.0 Ladakh 11.0*** Iran 11.1 Brunei 11.2 Vietnam 11.3 Kashmir 12.5 Oman 12.5 Pakistan 14.1 Maldives 15.0 Turkey 15.4 Kuwait 15.6 Palestine 15.6 Bhutan 16.2 Tajikistan 16.9 Siberia 18.1 Sri Lanka 18.7 Kyrgyzstan 19.6 Saudi Arabia 20.1 Azerbaijan 20.6 Syria 21.2 Uzbekistan 23.7 Korea (North) 25.0 Turkmenistan 25.0 Yemen 25.0 East Timor 26.5 Qatar 26.8 Mongolia 29.3 Korea (South) 30.0 Iraq 36.5 United Arab Emirates 37.5 Lebanon 46.2 Jordan ?? Georgia ?? E.Turkistan -19.0 -------------------------------------------------------- ASIA TOTAL 6.6* -------------------------------------------------------- Source: Table 1 * averaged over 16 months, Feb 97 - Jun 98 ** growth rate 8.3% means doubling the volume during the 12 month period *** average for 3 months Mar-Jun 98Table 6 shows that the least dynamic sets of information are those about Sinagpore, Israel, Japan and China. Meanwhile, rapid expansion is shown by documents on Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, Syria, Uzbekistan, Korea (North), Turkmenistan, Yemen, East Timor, Qatar, Mongolia, Korea (South), Iraq, United Arab Emirates, and Lebanon. Calculations (not presented here) show that there is no direct relationship whatsoever between the simple volume of existing information and the rate with which such information is placed online. The reasons behind these differential production rates appear to be more complex and possibly involve a combination of factors. These could include, in addition to the the volume of existing information, the length of experience with and intensity of use of the Internet by residents of a given country; the country's role in the global affairs as well as its current media 'sexiness' and newsworthiness.
URL http://asiandoc.lib.ohio-state.edu/v1n3/tech/annapurna.html
|