mediacloud 3.0.0-b1

MediaCloud API Client Library

This is the source code of the python client for the MediaCloud API v2.

Usage

First sign up for an API key. Then

pip install mediacloud

Examples

To get the first 2000 the stories associated with a query and dump the output to json:

import mediacloud, json, datetime
mc = mediacloud.api.MediaCloud('MY_API_KEY')

fetch_size = 1000
stories = []
last_processed_stories_id = 0
while len(stories) < 2000:
    fetched_stories = mc.storyList('( obama AND policy ) OR ( whitehouse AND policy)',
                                   solr_filter=[ mc.publish_date_query( datetime.date(2013,1,1), datetime.date(2015,1,1)),
                                                                         'tags_id_media:1'],
                                    last_processed_stories_id=last_processed_stories_id, rows= fetch_size)
    stories.extend( fetched_stories)
    if len( fetched_stories) < fetch_size:
        break

    last_processed_stories_id = stories[-1]['processed_stories_id']

print json.dumps(stories)

Find out how many sentences in the US mainstream media that mentioned “Zimbabwe” and “president” in 2013:

import mediacloud, datetime
mc = mediacloud.api.MediaCloud('MY_API_KEY')
res = mc.sentenceCount('( zimbabwe AND president)', solr_filter=[mc.publish_date_query( datetime.date( 2013, 1, 1), datetime.date( 2014, 1, 1) ), 'tags_id_media:1' ])
print res['count'] # prints the number of sentences found

Alternatively, this query could be specified as follows

import mediacloud
mc = mediacloud.api.MediaCloud('MY_API_KEY')
results = mc.sentenceCount('( zimbabwe AND president)', '+publish_date:[2013-01-01T00:00:00Z TO 2014-01-01T00:00:00Z} AND +tags_id_media:1')
print results['count']

Find the most commonly used words in sentences from the US mainstream media that mentioned “Zimbabwe” and “president” in 2013:

import mediacloud, datetime
mc = mediacloud.api.MediaCloud('MY_API_KEY')
words = mc.wordCount('( zimbabwe AND president)',  solr_filter=[mc.publish_date_query( datetime.date( 2013, 1, 1), datetime.date( 2014, 1, 1) ), 'tags_id_media:1' ] )
print words[0]  #prints the most common word

To find out all the details about one particular story by id:

import mediacloud
mc = mediacloud.api.MediaCloud('MY_API_KEY')
story = mc.story(169440976)
print story['url']  # prints the url the story came from

To save the first 100 stories from one day to a database:

import mediacloud, datetime
mc = mediacloud.api.MediaCloud('MY_API_KEY')
db = mediacloud.storage.MongoStoryDatabase('one_day')
stories = mc.storyList(mc.publish_date_query( datetime.date (2014, 01, 01), datetime.date(2014,01,02) ), last_processed_stories_id=0,rows=100)
[db.addStory(s) for s in stories]
print db.storyCount()

Take a look at the apitest.py and storagetest.py for more detailed examples.

Development

If you are interested in adding code to this module, first clone the GitHub repository.

Testing

First run all the tests. Copy mc-client.config.template to mc-client.config and edit it. Then run python tests.py. Notice you get a mediacloud-api.log that tells you about each query it runs.

Distribution

1. Run python test.py to make sure all the test pass

2. Update the version number in mediacloud/__init__.py

3. Make a brief note in the version history section in the README file about the changes

4. Run python setup.py sdist to test out a version locally

5. Then run python setup.py sdist upload -r pypitest to release a test version to PyPI’s test server

6. Run pip install -i https://testpypi.python.org/pypi mediacloud somewhere and then use it with Python to make sure the test release works.

7. When you’re ready to push to pypi run python setup.py sdist upload -r pypi

8. Run pip install mediacloud somewhere and then try it to make sure it worked.