Analyzing Public Interest and Engagement: A Case Study of “Game of Thrones” on Wikipedia
“Game of Thrones,” the fantasy television series based on George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” novels, captivated audiences worldwide with its intricate plotlines, compelling characters, and stunning visuals. As one of the most popular TV and greatest series of the 21st century, it drew widespread attention and generated intense discussions among fans. Throughout this analysis, the Wikipedia Game of Thrones page will be analyzed to dive deep into public sentiment, interest, and engagement with the show over time.
Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, serves as a repository of knowledge contributed by volunteers from around the globe. It relies on the collaborative efforts of editors to create and maintain articles on a vast number of topics. Essentially, if you can think it, its probably on Wikipedia. It’s basically the Amazon for public knowledge.
By using the wikifunctions tool, we can analyze things like the number of page views, editing activity and more. These metrics provide valuable insights into popularity dynamics and public interest on different topics. Although this analysis digs into a TV show, the fundamentals and basic methodology are applicable to far more with greater societal importance. Using a tool like wikifunctions to gauge public interest and sentiment can provide insight into things like historical events, political movements, and much more. It can help key decision makers make more informed decisions and glean knowledge on the dissemination of information, and the evolving nature of public discourse.
Pageviews
I started my analysis of Game of Thrones by delving into the number of page views over time. If you haven’t seen Game of Thrones, it can be a confusing show for many. Character names are unique with lots of different characters, kingdoms, houses, etc. Individuals commonly look up explanations on sources like Wikipedia when watching the show.
There have been 8 main seasons of Game of Thrones and 1 season of House of Dragon (the prequel) with the second season airing this year. The visualization below details the number of page views on Wikipedia for Game of Thrones over time (adjusted using a logarithmic y-axis).
Although the first season aired in 2011, this graph trends backward to 2016 to show a glimpse. The grey shaded areas represent the time periods where seasons were airing live. It’s clear that the number of page views spike and coincide with new seasons. Interestingly, public interest seems to slightly drop during the middle of the season and run up to the highest point for the finale. This represents public anticipation and viewership.
I also found it interesting — but somewhat expected — that the Game of Thrones Wikipedia page received increased views for the release of House of Dragon. My prediction is that people wanted to remind themselves of certain characters, events, etc., before diving into the prequel show.
Unique Revisions
Aside from page views, I also wanted to dive into revision counts. Wikipedia tracks and records every time a user makes edits to a page. This can be used as a measure of public discourse and provide insight into ‘editing wars’ between users.
In the graph above, the x-axis represents time and y-axis represents the number of unique revisions. The grey shaded areas represent the period in which each respective season was being aired live. As expected, there are spikes in editing to the page when a new season is being shown. My prediction is that people are arguing about the correct information that needs to be displayed to the public. However, the red bar indicates an anomaly. There were no new seasons being aired during this time, but the number of revisions is higher than when season 8 aired. After some research, I found that around this period of middle-late 2022, producers were working on casting the House of Dragon prequel to Game of Thrones. But, if that is the case, why would the actual House of Dragon show have such low revisions when being aired?
Findings and Conclusions
Wikipedia is one of the greatest sites on the internet. It allows for public collaboration, discourse, and serves as one the largest hubs for information. This analysis of Game of Thrones through Wikipedia metrics serves as a proxy for understanding greater public interest and engagement. Specifically, regarding Game of Thrones, it’s clear that this show has gained massive attention but also created lots of debate.
The time series correlation of seasons airing with page views and revisions proves that Wikipedia is a center point in the dissemination of information — even for TV shows.
These findings shine a greater light on the dynamics of information distribution and consumption in this new digital age. The open-editing model allows for everyday to people to both share and learn new information. However, it can also pose challenges to accuracy of information. The spikes in revisions prove that biases and subjectivity can present itself and cause large public debate in the form of ‘editing wars’.
The next time you visit Wikipedia for information, be sure to stay vigilant and always double check your sources.
