IntenSE
Description
IntenSE (Intensity and Shade of Events) is a database developed by CEPII using data from GDELT (Global Database of Events, Language, and Tone, Leetaru & Schrodt, 2023, https://www.gdeltproject.org/). Built from articles published by 164 news agencies, it contains two monthly indicators designed to characterize the geopolitical climate: Shade and Intensity.
In the bilateral database, the Shade measures the tone of the geopolitical climate between two countries, while Intensity reflects the relative importance of this relationship for the first country in the pair. In the unilateral database, Shade indicates the tone of the geopolitical climate within a given country, and Intensity measures that country’s importance in the international media landscape.
The bilateral and unilateral datasets cover 201 countries (i.e., 12,766 country pairs for the bilateral version) over the period from March 2015 to July 2025 inclusive, with monthly frequency.
In the bilateral database, the Shade measures the tone of the geopolitical climate between two countries, while Intensity reflects the relative importance of this relationship for the first country in the pair. In the unilateral database, Shade indicates the tone of the geopolitical climate within a given country, and Intensity measures that country’s importance in the international media landscape.
The bilateral and unilateral datasets cover 201 countries (i.e., 12,766 country pairs for the bilateral version) over the period from March 2015 to July 2025 inclusive, with monthly frequency.
Reference document to cite: Chevalier, N., Crozet, M., Emlinger, C. & Mirza, D. (2026). Trade under Tensions: Insights from media-Reported Bilateral Events. CEPII Working Paper, n°2026-02
Person in charge & contact: Charlotte Emlinger, charlotte.emlinger
cepii.fr
Licence: Creative Commons BY SA
Methodology
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CEPII relies on data provided by GDELT (Global Database of Events, Language, and Tone, Leetaru & Schrodt, 2023, https://www.gdeltproject.org/) to construct the IntenSE database. The latter is based on articles published by 164 news agencies between March 2015 and July 2025 inclusive. Articles are classified into seven categories according to their tone (negative or positive) and the nature of the events reported, following the CAMEO classification (Gerner et al., 2002).
The Negative (respectively Positive) category includes articles with a negative (respectively positive) tone and/or reporting violent events. Within these categories, a distinction is made between:
- Statements, i.e., purely verbal events
- Actions, i.e., performative events
- Violence, included only in the Negative category
In the bilateral version, the indicators are defined as follows:
- Shade: the share of articles belonging to a given category (for example, Negative) that mention two countries simultaneously, relative to all articles mentioning these two countries during a given month. Example: if, during a month, 20% of articles mentioning France and the United States have a negative tone, the Negative Shade between these two countries equals 0.2.
- Intensity: the share of articles mentioning two countries, relative to all articles mentioning the first country in the pair during the same month. Example: if articles mentioning France and the United States account for 10% of all articles mentioning France, the Intensity of the United States for France equals 0.1.
In the unilateral version, the indicators are defined as follows:
- Shade: the share of articles belonging to a given category that mention a country, relative to all articles mentioning that country during a given month. Example: if 20% of articles concerning France in a given month have a negative tone, France’s Negative Shade equals 0.2.
- Intensity: the share of articles mentioning a country, relative to all articles published during the same month. Example: if 2% of all articles published in a month concern France, the country’s Intensity equals 0.02.
