Picturing the Arctic: digital imagery and the prospect of using search engines to collect data for interpretative political research

Figures & data

Figure 1. A command window running the google-images.download script, note the errors highlighted in yellow. Screenshot by the author 29 September 2021.

Figure 2. A Windows explorer folder view displaying downloaded visual data. Screenshot by the author 28 September 2021.

Table 1. Coding scheme for Arctic visuals.

Thematic (pictures)			Spatial (maps)
Environmental	Economic	Geostrategic	Local	Global
(Marine) landscapes, icescapes	Ships	Military vessels, planes, helicopters, submarines	Arrows showing intra-Arctic flows	Arrows showing Arctic-to-world or world-to-Arctic flows
Flora and fauna	Oil rigs	Satellite equipment	Regional maps	Maps embedded in global maps
Aurora	Industry	Soldiers	Definitions of the Arctic	‘3D’ picture of Arctic on globe
Waste	Infrastructure, settlements	Conferences	Sectoral divisions	Arctic in global earth systems (gulf stream, Köppen zone, food webs)
Researchers, research bases	Tourism	Politician ‘family photos’	Highlighted political/linguistic boundaries	Map without political boundaries
Environmental protests	Indigenous economic activity	Logos of (international) organisations, flags

Figure 3. Original by Mike Dunn (Published as CC BY 2.0). Archived version of retouched image available at https://web.archive.org/web/20190124011805/https:/bellona.org/event/26098