Media Topics

Subject Taxonomy for the Media - the successor to the Subject Codes

Diagram

Media Topics

Media Topics is a constantly updated taxonomy of over 1,200 terms with a focus on categorising text. Originally based on the IPTC Subject Codes taxonomy, the Media Topics taxonomy was first released  in 2010 and is updated at least once a year. It is now available in 13 languages and language variants: Arabic, British and US English, Chinese, Danish, French, German, Norwegian (Bokmal and Nynorsk), Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish.

The Media Topics vocabulary can be viewed on the IPTC Controlled Vocabulary server at http://cv.iptc.org/newscodes/mediatopic. In addition it can be downloaded as a NewsML-G2 Knowledge Item, RDF/XML or RDF/Turtle document, please read the Guidelines. An Excel version of Media Topics and a more user-friendly tree-like view is also available.

We have recently created an IPTC NewsCodes Guidelines document which describes much more about how IPTC maintains Media Topics and the other IPTC NewsCodes controlled vocabularies.

The Media Topics vocabulary is a member of the family of IPTC NewsCodes. Read more about NewsCodes features and terms of use.

Mappings between Media Topics and Subject Codes

The development of Media Topics started with the Subject Codes vocabulary, extended the tree from 3 to 5 levels and reused the same 17 top level terms. The lower level terms have been revised and rearranged. The Media Topics vocabulary provides a mapping back to the Subject Codes. The mappings are viewable as “Related Concept” entries on the controlled vocabulary server.

Mappings between Media Topics and Wikidata Concepts

We also maintain a set of mappings to related concepts from the Wikidata.org project where possible. These are also viewable as “Related Concept” entries on the controlled vocabulary server.

 

Upcoming Events

  • IPTC Autumn Meeting 2023 - for IPTC members

    Location
    Online
    Date(s)
    2 - 4 October, 2023

  • Photo Metadata Conference 2024 - open to the public

    Location
    Online
    Date(s)
    Early 2024 to be confirmed

  • IPTC Spring Meeting 2024 - for IPTC members

    Location
    New York City, USA and online
    Date(s)
    15 - 17 April 2024
Latest News

Oct 2 NewsCodes Q3 2023 update released

The IPTC News Codes Working Group has just released a new batch of changes to the IPTC NewsCodes family of controlled vocabularies. Note that we skipped the Q2 update this year because there weren’t many changes, and also because there were already so many changes in Q1 of this year. Media Topic changes Here’s a […]