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So the #DayofDH2021 has begun and before I retire to bed, I'll share a preview of a map I am preparing for a multilingual data set: #ProjectJaraid's bibliographic data for all Arabic periodicals between 1799 and 1929 #multilingualDH
Apparently my tired brain skipped a day and thought it was Thursday already. I’ll delay further tweets until the real #DayofDH2021 
While the tutorial on producing animated maps with #rstats is uploading, I continue this thread with some #multilingualDH. #DayOfDH2021
First off is a map showing the global distribution of bi-lingual Arabic periodicals. This map is also the first one using the exiting new capabilities of R to render Arabic properly with the {ragg} library. A huge thank you to @thomasp85 #DayOfDH2021 #multilingualDH
While this map needs to be polished to increase readability, it already provides some insight: multilinguality was less prominent in the Americas than other regions. #DayOfDH2021 #multilingualDH
The next maps will focus on known holdings and digitised copies to illustrate how collection bias translates into digitisation bias and the digital divide more general. #DayOfDH2021 #MultilingualDH
Before we come to mapping the data, let's have a look at a pie chart: of the 3269 Arabic periodicals published between 1799 and 1929, we could only localise ¼ (747) in collections, many of which are incomplete. Only 145 are partially digitised #DayOfDH2021 #multilingualDH
This map shows the origin of known surviving copies of Arabic periodicals published between 1799 and 1929 #DayOfDH2021 #multilingualDH
And here we have the origin of digitised Arabic periodicals published between 1799 and 1929 #DayOfDH2021 #multilingualDH
Compare these numbers to small platform from the Global North such as https://hwk1.hebis.de/ which provides open access to 125 regional Hessian and digitised newspapers from a region with currently 6.2 Mio inhabitants #DayOfDH2021 #multilingualDH
Finally, the impetus for the first map in this thread was the idea to computationally generate a sequence of maps, which could then be combined into an animated GIF.
Most of the GIFs are too large for Twitter but I can share the development some map slices for a brief illustrated and data driven history of the Arabic press across the Middle East and North Africa #DayOfDH2021 #MultilingualDH
1. During the 1870s Beirut was the center of the nascent Arabic periodical press #DayOfDH2021 #multilingualDH
3. Another decade later, another center emerged, changing of the Arabic press into a multi-centric discursive space that from now on included important clusters beyond the Mashriq (and the imperial center in Istanbul): Tunis #DayOfDH2021 #multilingualDH
4. However, during the 1890s and 1900s, Egyptian periodicals dominated the Arabic press, while new centers emerged in the American mahjar #DayOfDH2021 #multilingualDH
5. The Young Turk Revolution of 1908 was a watershed and numbers of periodical titles exploded across the Mashriq in its wake (although many titles were short-lived). #DayOfDH2021 #multilingualDH
6. Yet, these maps reveal two important developments not commonly covered in the historical account of the Arabic press: Tunis had become an important hub (already before 1908) and Baghdad took the crown of the most new titles in 1911 #DayOfDH2021 #multilingualDH
7. Finally, Baghdad continued to be an important publishing hub after World War I (during which numbers of new titles dramatically declined) #DayOfDH2021 #multilingualDH
I close this thread with a link to the tutorial promised at the beginning, which also includes some of the GIFs too large for Twitter https://openarabicpe.github.io/2021-04-29-mapping-with-r/ It focuses on mapping with #rstats and {ggplot2}. Any comments would be deeply appreciated. #DayOfDH2021 #multilingualDH
A huge shout out and thank you to @adammestyan and the many people who contributed data to #ProjectJaraid over the last almost ten years. Please visit https://projectjaraid.github.io for a bibliographic overview of the Arabic press and links to our data set #DayOfDH2021 #multilingualDH
