Methodology & Data Sources

Data Sources

Ameliatory uses two primary data sources to build its dataset:

YouTube Data API v3

All video metadata, view counts, like counts, comment counts, subscriber counts, and channel information are collected through the YouTube Data API v3. We use the Channels, PlaylistItems, and Videos endpoints to discover and monitor content. View counts are snapshotted daily, creating a time-series record of each video's audience growth.

Congress Legislators Dataset

Politician roster data (names, party, state, chamber) comes from the unitedstates/congress-legislators open-source project maintained by civic technologists. YouTube channel associations are sourced from the companion social media dataset and supplemented by manual verification.

Coverage

Ameliatory tracks all current members of the US Congress (Senate and House) and sitting governors who maintain YouTube channels.

Some officials maintain multiple channels (e.g., an official government channel and a campaign channel). Both are tracked when identified and attributed to the same politician.

Methodology

Nightly Collection

An automated pipeline runs every night at approximately 2:00 AM ET. For each tracked channel, it:

1. Checks for newly published videos since the last collection run
2. Records full metadata for any new videos discovered (title, description, duration, tags, thumbnail)
3. Snapshots the current view count, like count, and comment count for all videos published within the last 90 days
4. Refreshes channel-level statistics (subscriber count, total views, total video count) on a weekly rotation

Leaderboard Calculations

The leaderboard ranks politicians by the total views accumulated on videos published within the last 30 days. "Views (30d)" represents the latest snapshot view count for each qualifying video, summed per politician. "Avg Views" divides the total by the number of videos published in that period.

Weekly Reports

Weekly reports cover Monday through Sunday. The "views gained" metric for each video is calculated as the difference between the Sunday snapshot and the prior Monday snapshot. Videos without snapshots at both endpoints are estimated using the nearest available data points.

YouTube Shorts

Videos 60 seconds or shorter are flagged as potential YouTube Shorts. They are included in all statistics and tables alongside long-form content. A dedicated Shorts filter will be available in a future release.

Update Frequency

All data on this site reflects the most recent nightly pipeline run. The pipeline typically completes by 6:00 AM ET, and the site is regenerated immediately after.

• New videos: Captured within 24 hours of publication
• View counts: Snapshotted daily for videos from the last 90 days
• Channel stats: Refreshed weekly (1/7 of channels per night)
• Leaderboard: Regenerated nightly
• Weekly reports: Published Monday mornings

Limitations

Ameliatory is a data-tracking platform, not an endorsement system. Please consider these limitations when interpreting the data:

• YouTube API quotas may occasionally cause brief gaps in data collection. The pipeline is designed to resume without data loss.
• View counts can include paid promotion. Some politicians run paid ads that inflate view counts on specific videos. Ameliatory does not currently distinguish organic from paid views.
• Channel attribution is manual. Some politicians may have untracked channels, and channel ownership can change.
• Deleted or privated videos are preserved in our database as historical records but may no longer be viewable on YouTube.
• Subscriber counts are rounded by YouTube (e.g., "1.2M") and may not reflect exact figures.

Research Context

The growth of YouTube as a political news platform is well-documented by nonpartisan research:

These trends make YouTube a critical — and often overlooked — battleground for political communication. Ameliatory exists to bring transparency and data to this space.

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