Скачать или смотреть (4.28.2022) SD: Flint Water Crisis: Managing Email Archives

Speaker: Louise Seamster, Assistant Professor, Sociology and Criminology

In early 2016, then-Governor Snyder publicly released what became a half-million page archive of state government emails pertaining to the Flint Water Crisis. Many of these emails were newsworthy for their attitude toward Flint residents, their ramifications for the crisis, or both. However, this archive was released in PDF form, making searching and analysis very difficult. In this talk, I will discuss our research team's process of working with this archive to date, and our future plans. The project involves reconstructing the email structures to produce a database of the emails, and the construction of a website that will provide public access to the full email database. Interpreting and improving the accessibility of this data holds significant public benefit, for other researchers, the public, and especially for Flint residents. The public-facing website will evolve from simple data queries and initial data visualizations to presenting research output and providing opportunities for deeper user engagement.