This paper by researchers at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) explores GDELT as an unconventional dataset for societal and economic issue tracking:
This contribution shows our ongoing work aimed at monitoring societal issues and economic activities (e.g., industrial production, unemployment, loneliness, cultural participation) across EU member states mining unconventional data sources to complement official statistics. Considered unconventional data sources include the Global Dataset of Events, Language and Tone (GDELT), Google Search data, and Dow Jones Data, News and Analytics (DNA). We show an early experiment aiming at nowcasting unemployment in Germany, Spain, France, and Italy, demonstrating the added value of these data both for scholars and policymakers.