Examining the Meaning of "Violence" Through Machine Learning Techniques.

Area of Science:

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Computational Social Science

Background:

• Scholarly debate suggests a widening definition of violence in Western societies.
• Traditional definitions focus on crime and warfare.
• Empirical evidence is needed to support the expanding concept of violence.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the evolving meaning of violence in contemporary Western societies.
• To analyze the discourse surrounding violence in the Netherlands.
• To provide empirical data on the changing public perception of violence.

Main Methods:

• Machine learning techniques applied to a large corpus of text.
• Analysis of 80,000 Dutch national newspaper articles from 2012-2021.
• Discourse analysis focusing on the co-occurrence of terms related to violence and societal issues.

Main Results:

• Public discourse on violence includes traditional elements (crime, war, interpersonal violence).
• Violence is increasingly associated with societal challenges like social media, political polarization, and social injustice.
• Terms related to social injustice (e.g., "racist") show a growing association with violence over time.

Conclusions:

• The collective understanding of violence in the Netherlands is expanding beyond traditional contexts.
• The concept of violence is increasingly linked to social injustice, affecting ethnic minorities, women, and the LGBT+ community.
• The study supports the notion of a broader, evolving definition of violence in contemporary society.