For, Arab Spring, I read every article in the New York Times and the New York Post in 2011 that related to the Arab Spring revolts. After reading the articles, certain texts were then excised from the newspapers, arranged into different subjects, and then highlighted to articulate which subjects appear with more frequency. Subjects with more text are highlighted in a darker green and those with less in a lighter shade of green.

These subjects include democracy vs. U.S. interests, U.S. oil interests, different U.S. responses to different countries, Islamic Fundamentalism fears, Western economic interests in Libya, the 1979 Egypt/Israel peace treaty, the killing of protesters in Yemen, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, and Syria, and governments blaming the unrest on foreigners and Islamic militants, among many others. This work explores various aspects of the U.S. relationship to the events surrounding the Arab Spring.

By distilling all of this information into a highly structured format, the complexities and contradictions of the uprisings as they relate to the United States are more clearly defined. The vast amount of reporting laid out in the work enables the viewer to make comparisons, probe the coverage, wrestle with questions such as why do we make certain foreign policy decisions, what are the reasons, are the reasons stated clearly, and are our actions justified. 

www.arabspringmap.com