Concept:
My concept is based on showing the current global mood, and the world’s current situation. Because whenever I used would google “news” most of the things would is evoke aa negative emotion from me. So, I decided to visualize the news and categorize them into a few different emotions or feelings.
How I created the code:
I used Guardian and NYT API keys in order to get access to live articles, although there are some restrictions, like page requests. Therefore, I added some delay in order to access a larger number of pages and news article headlines. I also used world.json for the country borders.
I then created different arrays: one for the emotional bubbles, one for the country borders, one for the CNN breaking news ticker, and one for tracking articles so they are not shown twice. I also added a timer that updates every 60 seconds and adjusted the speed and position of the news ticker.
Then I added geographical points for a list of countries. I created bubbles for different emotions, with each emotion represented by a color. There is also a map key showing which color represents which emotion. The bubbles have visual effects like glowing and shrinking over time to make the map feel dynamic. Emotions are detected using keywords in article titles to classify sadness, anger, hope, or joy.
It initially gets the last 48 hours of news, then it is updated with live breaking news. I also added fallbacks: if the world map fails to load, a simple grid is shown, and if the API fails, a CORS proxy is used to make sure the news still comes through.
The code:
// Convert guardian format to our format
// Fetch 48 hours of historical news from The Guardian
function fetchHistoricalNews() {
let twoDaysAgo = new Date();
twoDaysAgo.setDate(twoDaysAgo.getDate() - 2);
let fromDate = twoDaysAgo.toISOString().split("T")[0]; // Format: YYYY-MM-DD
console.log("📅 Fetching Guardian news from " + fromDate + " to today...");
let totalArticles = [];
let pagesToFetch = 10; // Get 10 pages of results
let pagesLoaded = 0;
let failedPages = 0;
// Fetch pages sequentially with delay to avoid rate limiting
for (let pageNumber = 1; pageNumber <= pagesToFetch; pageNumber++) {
setTimeout(() => {
let apiURL =
"https://content.guardianapis.com/search?section=world&show-tags=keyword&from-date=" +
fromDate +
"&page-size=30&page=" +
pageNumber +
"&show-fields=webPublicationDate&api-key=" +
GUARDIAN_API_KEY;
console.log("🔄 Requesting Guardian page " + pageNumber + "...");
fetch(apiURL)
.then((response) => {
console.log("📡 Guardian page " + pageNumber + " response status: " + response.status);
if (!response.ok) throw new Error("HTTP " + response.status);
return response.json();
})
.then((data) => {
if (data && data.response && data.response.results) {
totalArticles = totalArticles.concat(data.response.results);
pagesLoaded++;
console.log("✅ Page " + pageNumber + " loaded: " + data.response.results.length + " articles");
if (pagesLoaded + failedPages === pagesToFetch) {
if (totalArticles.length > 0) {
console.log("📊 Total Guardian historical: " + totalArticles.length + " (" + pagesLoaded + "/" + pagesToFetch + " pages successful)");
isShowingHistorical = true;
sourceStatus.guardian.active = true;
sourceStatus.guardian.articleCount = totalArticles.length;
processArticles(totalArticles, true, "guardian"); // true = historical
} else {
console.error("❌ All Guardian pages failed");
sourceStatus.guardian.active = false;
}
}
} else {
console.warn("⚠️ Guardian page " + pageNumber + " returned empty results");
failedPages++;
}
})
.catch((error) => {
console.error("❌ Guardian page " + pageNumber + " failed:", error.message);
failedPages++;
if (pagesLoaded + failedPages === pagesToFetch) {
if (totalArticles.length > 0) {
console.log("📊 Total Guardian historical: " + totalArticles.length + " (" + pagesLoaded + "/" + pagesToFetch + " pages successful)");
isShowingHistorical = true;
sourceStatus.guardian.active = true;
sourceStatus.guardian.articleCount = totalArticles.length;
processArticles(totalArticles, true, "guardian");
} else {
console.error("❌ All Guardian pages failed");
sourceStatus.guardian.active = false;
}
}
});
}, pageNumber * PAGE_REQUEST_DELAY); // Use delay variable
}
}
// Fetch the latest breaking news from The Guardian
function fetchGuardianNews() {
console.log("📰 [" + getCurrentTime() + "] Fetching Guardian news...");
let apiURL =
"https://content.guardianapis.com/search?section=world&show-tags=keyword&page-size=25&show-fields=webPublicationDate&api-key=" +
GUARDIAN_API_KEY;
fetch(apiURL)
.then((response) => {
if (!response.ok) throw new Error("HTTP " + response.status);
return response.json();
})
.then((data) => {
if (data && data.response && data.response.results) {
console.log("✅ [" + getCurrentTime() + "] Guardian: " + data.response.results.length + " articles");
sourceStatus.guardian.active = true;
sourceStatus.guardian.lastUpdate = new Date();
sourceStatus.guardian.articleCount = data.response.results.length;
isShowingHistorical = false; // We're showing breaking news now
processArticles(data.response.results, false, "guardian"); // false = breaking news
}
})
.catch((error) => {
console.log("⚠️ Guardian direct failed, trying CORS proxy...");
tryGuardianWithProxy();
});
}
// Backup method: Try Guardian API through CORS proxy
function tryGuardianWithProxy() {
let apiURL =
"https://content.guardianapis.com/search?section=world&show-tags=keyword&page-size=25&show-fields=webPublicationDate&api-key=" +
GUARDIAN_API_KEY;
let proxiedURL = "https://api.allorigins.win/raw?url=" + encodeURIComponent(apiURL);
fetch(proxiedURL)
.then((response) => {
if (!response.ok) throw new Error("HTTP " + response.status);
return response.json();
})
.then((data) => {
if (data && data.response && data.response.results) {
console.log("✅ [" + getCurrentTime() + "] Guardian via proxy: " + data.response.results.length + " articles");
sourceStatus.guardian.active = true;
sourceStatus.guardian.lastUpdate = new Date();
sourceStatus.guardian.articleCount = data.response.results.length;
isShowingHistorical = false;
processArticles(data.response.results, false, "guardian");
}
})
.catch((error) => {
console.error("❌ [" + getCurrentTime() + "] Guardian completely failed:", error.message);
sourceStatus.guardian.active = false;
});
}
Reflection and ideas for future work or improvements:
Reflection:
Global Mood taught me a lot about combining live data, visualization, and emotion analysis. Seeing emotions vary across regions in real time was fascinating, and effects like glowing and shrinking bubbles made the map feel dynamic. It also taught me how to APIs and json files on P5.js.
Future Work and improvements:
I would love to present it as an installation to show people the current global situation. For future improvements, I would incorporate Natural Language Processing to classify emotions more accurately, rather than relying solely on specific keywords. I also wish I had greater access to open-source news APIs to expand the dataset.