This section explains how to use iNet step by step. 3. Explanation of the screens

This part labels the four main screens of iNet, which appear when a job is opened. Every part will be ex-plained in the order of its number as shown in figure 5 below.

1. Jobs screen :
It gives you the most elementary information, namely, about which coding jobs are currently running. If two or more jobs run simultaneously, select the title of the job to open the articles within it.

2. Articles screen:
Shows all articles within a coding job. Each column gives information like the date published, headline, which newspaper (source), page number, length(amount of words), irrelevant if it’s non-political information, comments added by a coder and finally who has analysed the text (coder).To code an article, double click on it.

3. Annotation screen:
After you have opened a text, you can code it using the annotation screen. Here you enter, following the rules of the NET Method, all elements of a so-called ‘core phrase’ (see the introduction to the NET Method for detailed information on this topic). The unit-column shows the number of the corresponding core phrase of an article (as shown in 4 the text screen and explained hereafter). Enter within the other textboxes the source of the sentence, the subject (an actor or issue where the ‘energy’ originates from), quality (whether the statement or action of the subject is positive, neutral or negative to the object),the sentence type (see paragraph 1.4 of the introduction to the NET method for an explanation of the abbreviations as shown in the type column in iNet), the object (an actor or issue something is said about or with which something is done), the central issue or the angle of the phrase (only when an issue isn’t coded in subject or object position). More details on how to code in iNet will be given in chapter 3.
Use the checkbox irrelevant if an article isn’t about politics (no political actors or policy mentioned in the headline or lead). The comments textbox can be used to give information about problems or if something isn’t clear. 4. Text and ontology screen: The first tab of this screen shows the text of the current article. The sentences are divided by a unique number (see the grey marks) that corresponds with the unit column in the annotation screen (number 3 in figure 5). The second tab gives an overview of the ontology(see figure 6).This is the list of central objects as mentioned in the introduction. It contains all actors and issues that have to be used to code the texts. The ontology window is a useful tool, because it visualises within one view in which category an issue or object is placed. When you’re not completely sure about the right actor or issue, you can search for central objects by using the search box. The drop down menu above the search box shows which actors or issues are allowed to use within the columns of the annotation screen (see number 3 in figure 5). In figure 6 all central objects are shown that can be used in the angle column. You can select source, subject or object to view all possible categories. The ontology has a tree-structure. Use the plus or minus sign to see all actors or issues within a category. Below the structure is explained on a global level.


Actor
• Civil administration: governmental actors, advisory organs, civil servants and so on.
• Executive: this entity is used to code executive, political organs such as ministries.
• Foreign actors: use this to code political actors like other countries than the U.S.. For example in stories about international policy (bilateral relations and so on).
• Party: this category contains the democratic and republican party and frequently mentioned democrats and republicans.
• Person: all important national politicians.
• Representative: actors like the Senate and Congress, and their members.
• Societal group: common actors in society like civilians, police and army, media, experts and so on. • Judiciary: judiciary actors like judges, lawyers, court, criminals and the Public Prosecution Service.


Issue (direction)
• Christian values: ethical issues like abortion, euthanasia, cloning, tolerance etcetera.
• Leftist issues: issue positions commonly associated with the left wing of the political spectrum, such as pro social security and social market economy (rent subsidies).
• New Left issues : post-materialist progressive issues, such as gay rights, international aid, and peace missions.
• Pro administrative reforms: measures to involve citizens in politics, to change old policy-making.
• Pro crime: all issues related to crime. For example gun possession, prevention of crime and so on.
• Pro education: favourable measures to improve the educational system.
• Pro environment: policy to protect the environment, public transport, conservation of fragile nature etcetera.
• Pro European integration : everything about cooperation of European countries.
• Pro health care: all improvements of public health and health care. Such as food safety, policy against obesity and so on.
• Pro immigrants/asylum seekers: everything about immigration, integration and segrega-tion.
• Pro infrastructure: road and rail construction, housing, waterways, air traffic, measures to improve infrastructure and so on.
• Pro terror: everything concerning terror, such as terrorist acts, security (measures) and so on.
• Rightist issues: issue positions often attributed to the political right. For example: taxes, tax simplification, liberalisation, government spending, army issues and so on.
• Valence issues: economic growth, employment, inflation and freedom of expression.

4. Coding an article

The annotation screen (number three in figure 5) is the most important iNet window. Here you enter all data that will be stored on the server. Paragraph 3 already gave a brief overview of all elements of the screen. At this point we’ll go in depth and show how to code a newspaper story the iNet-way.

4.1
Step 1: Before the exact analysis
There’s one rule to keep in mind before doing the exact analysis: read the headline and lead of the article in the text screen to determine the topic of the story, and then try to identify all actors and issues involved. In this way you’ll get some context to interpret the information. Most important however, is to decide whether the article is political (political actors and policy mentioned in headline or lead) or irrelevant (don’t analyse, use the checkbox irrelevant and save).Sentence 1.1 (the grey number) always is the headline, sometimes followed by a subtitle marked by 1.2. It takes more effort to identify the lead, but often it’s identifiable by a range from sentence number 2.1 to 2.x when a lead has more phrases.
Now we’ll take the article of figure 7 as an example. First we scan the headlines 1.1 and 1.2, followed by the lead (2.1).The case is about a statement made by ‘leading Republicans’ like the former advisor of Reagan, the U.S. government should ‘target nations that aid terrorism’. Central topic is ‘the war against terror’ or ‘terrorism’. Actors are the U.S. (a label for the government as becomes clear in the lead), foreign countries ‘that aid terrorism’, ‘leading Republicans’, the Bush administration, again foreign govern-ments/countries ‘that aid terrorism’ and terrorist organisations. Issues are terrorist attacks and international relations. It’s obvious this story is ‘political’, because political actors like the Republicans and the U.S. government appear in the headline and lead. So we’ll code this article more detailed following the NET Method.

4.2
Step 2: Coding source and subject
After the global identification of all objects, the detailed analysis starts. In the text screen the current phrase we code is marked grey (figure 7) and by its number in the unit column within the annotation screen.
The first coding field we encounter is the source. At first glance the headline 1.1 doesn’t contain a clearly attributed source (sometimes indicated by quoting signs).Nonetheless, the verb ‘urged to’ refers to another actor than the government (the Bush administration is ‘urged’ to do something by an action or statement of other actor). This is why it’s useful to read headline and lead before the actual coding. From this we know exactly who urges the government to act: (leading) Republicans. To code the source using the ontology, just type the first characters ‘re(…)’and a drop down menu shows up with all possible sources (see figure 7). Select ‘republicans’ and press the enter key on your keyboard.
Press the right arrow key of your keyboard to jump to the next field, namely the subject of the core phrase. Before continuing, an essential point has to be underlined. A subject as well as the object must be entered; that’s why these fields are labelled with a red colour. If you don’t enter an actor or issue, or a non-existing one, iNet refuses to save the data to Amcat. To enter the subject of sentence 1.1 – the U.S. govern-ment – just type the first characters ‘go(…)’ and a drop down menu shows up with all possible subjects (see figure 8). In this case we need ‘government’. Select it by pressing the arrow key for navigating down and hit the enter key.

4.3
Step 3: Positive or negative?
Navigate to the quality textbox (figure 9). Decide whether the described action is negative or positive to the object. When it’s a positive direction, use the numeric button ‘1’ on your keyboard or the minus key directly followed by ‘1’ in case of a negative action. The values 0,5 and -0,5 are possible too, if a statement is weakened by words like ‘slightly’, ‘might’, ‘could’ and so on.

The action of our example is negatively charged, because the Bush administration has to ‘target’ foreign countries (object; see step 5 below) that ‘aid terrorism’. Press the enter key and jump to the next column.

4.4
Step 4: Code the sentence type
Next step is to code the sentence type (see the introduction to the NET Method for an explanation of the abbreviations). Do this by selecting the type in the drop down menu (figure 10). In this example it’s ACT because the government is urged to do something against (tip: when you type ‘act’ iNet selects the right type without scrolling through the list).

4.5
Step 5: Code the object
The object (actor or issue something is said about or with which something is done) is coded the same way as the subject and source. Type ‘for(…)’ and select the right object ‘foreign countries’ (figure 11).

4.6
Step 6: Using the angle column
Because an issue isn’t always coded as subject or object, you have to code it using the angle column. Otherwise the researchers won’t know the context of the sentence during the data-analysis. In our example the angle is ‘terrorism’ (figure 12).

Figure 12: If an issue isn’t coded in subject or object position, enter the most suitable, central issue as angle

The first core phrase is coded. iNet jumps to the next sentence automatically by pressing the right arrow key when the angle field is selected. Repeat every single step described above to code the other sentences.
Sometimes a sentence contains more than one core phrase, but iNet jumps to the next number like 1.2 (figure 13). To assign a second core phrase to 1.1, hold down the ctrl and shift key and use the up and down buttons on your keyboard to link the phrase to the sentence number above or below. See keyboard commands for all key combinations.

Figure 13: Use ctrl+shift and the arrow keys to assign an extra core phrase to 1.1

5 . Some useful buttons

Often the headline and first sentence of the lead contain the same core phrase. You could code them twice manually, but that isn’t the real iNet-way of making coding quicker. That’s why some useful buttons are added. You can find these tools above the jobs screen (figure 14).
The first icons are familiar: save the active article only or save all coded articles to Amcat. The red coloured cross makes it possible to delete one or more selected core phrases in the annotation screen. The following button (two red arrows) copies a selected core phrase. The subsequent key (green and red ar-row) copies the selected phrase and inverts the subject and object. Button six (red arrow and plus sign) adds a new sentence. Next two icons are comparable to the key combinations ctrl+shift+? or ctrl+shift+?, to assign a core phrase to another sentence number. The last active button (blue number 1 and plus sign) copies the first core phrase within the annotation screen. Just try them a few times to discover all capabilities.

Figure 14: Useful buttons for saving, deleting and copying core phrases






6 . Keyboard commands Press F or
Tab
Next field
Ctrl+Shift+ ? New coding for the next sentence
Ctrl+Shift+ ? Selected coding belongs to one sentence back. You can use it several times by clicking ? or move the coding to the next sentence by using ? while holding down Ctrl and Shift
Shift+ ? Next coding, same sentence