The Viral text project is now in it’s fourth phase. Since 2022, the Viral Texts team has collaborated with scholars from Washington University’s Racial Violence Archive on an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation-funded study of The Virality of Racial Terror, 1863-1921. Following the circulation of articles regarding anti-Black violence in American newspapers during the late 19th and early 20th centuriescertain texts were shared, borrowed, or repurposed across various publications. It seeks to develop theoretical models that will help scholars understand the textual and thematic qualities that went into these texts.
The goal is to use computational text analysis—adapted from techniques used in plagiarism detection and gene sequencing—to identify patterns of text reuse and circulation in historical newspapers.
The Viral text project is now in it’s fourth phase. Since 2022, the Viral Texts team has collaborated with scholars from Washington University’s Racial Violence Archive on an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation-funded study of The Virality of Racial Terror, 1863-1921. Following the circulation of articles regarding anti-Black violence in American newspapers during the late 19th and early 20th centuries
The Viral Texts Project investigates how texts from the 19th century, including poetry, fiction, and news articles, became “viral” in periodicals and newspapers. It helps researchers understand how ideas spread in an era before intellectual property limits by using computational methods to track patterns of reprinting and literary reuse. The research provides insights into the evolution of public discourse during the 1800s by revealing the networks and cultural dynamics of print media.
Project Details
Led by Ryan Cordell (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) and David Smith (Northeastern University), supported by a rotating team of scholars and collaborators. The project, which started at Northeastern University, has grown thanks to partnerships with organizations in the US, UK, and Australia. Since its launch in 2012, the project has undergone several significant stages of development.
Scope of the Viral Text Project
To determine and illustrate how certain texts—whether literary, political, scientific, or otherwise—were republished and dispersed throughout time and space, the project examines millions of newspaper stories from the 19th century. It consists of the creation of algorithms for textual reuse detection. Reprinted clusters are available in a searchable database at https://clusters.viraltexts.org. Publications, interactive visualizations, and displays that are both scholarly and accessible to the general audience. Research with a specific focus, such as The Virality of Racial Terror, which looks at how public stories of anti-Black violence spread.
Project Significance
This project is a significant and impactful digital humanities initiative, especially in its fourth phase, when the focus shifts to examining the virality of racial terror in American newspapers. Focusing on how anti-Black violence was represented across media outlets from 1863 to 1921.