Seeing Red
Seeing Red is an interactive, text-based project that visualizes the emotional weight of staying informed in a turbulent world. It uses real-time global news headlines and sentiment analysis to show how quickly news can feel overwhelming, visually blurring and fading neutral information while highlighting emotionally charged language.
The project reflects the exhaustion and helplessness that can come from trying to remain politically engaged amid a constant flood of troubling events.
How It Works
News Data Source: Headlines are retrieved in real-time using the GDELT API.
Sentiment Analysis: The AFINN model is used to score the sentiment of each word in a headline.
Color Coding:
Negative words appear in red
Positive words appear in green
Neutral words fade to transparency as you scroll
Interaction: As headlines accumulate, they become less legible and more emotionally saturated, simulating the toll of information fatigue.
Technologies Used
JavaScript (p5.js) for visual rendering
GDELT API for live news headlines
AFINN lexicon for sentiment scoring
Custom dictionaries for mapping words to colors