[ShaunCammack]

Here's an outline of our method, which might help explain this (And please feel free criticize it):

First, we look at news aggregators and twitter trends to see what the big stories of the day might be.

Then we pull a bunch of tweets with our social media listening tool and try evaluate the story on three criteria: Momentum (is it trending and growing), Partisanship (are two sides talking about it), and Emotion (Is the story morally animating).

Then we collect data by pulling tweets through our tool, and focusing on the most widely shared and engaged tweets, and sort them into pro/con (or whatever division fits the story.

Then it's analysis. We identify the facts each side is referencing, the affected values and emotions from either side, and whatever the key source of division is (if there is one.

Like any methodology, this has its limitations. It only looks at twitter, for example. If there is an argument or position out there that doesn't come through in the data, then we can't really assume it's there (although we do use broader ideas to contextualize and explain the data).

[escapedmoose]

Oh, that actually explains a lot. I don’t use Twitter, nor do most of the people I talk to about these things. Frankly, most of the stuff I see on Twitter sounds to me like it was composed by an insane person. If you used more of a “boots on the ground” approach and interviewed people who aren’t chronically online, your findings might ring more true with people like me. But maybe that’s not your goal? Nothing wrong with using Twitter as your basis, but I think the site as a whole will feel “off” to a lot of people unless you make it very clear that your data is Twitter-based.

[ShaunCammack]

I would love to have the resources to do interviews and fieldwork. But we try and get these posts out within 6 hours of them trending, before the antagonistic narratives solidify and people move on to the next topic.

And although a fraction of the country uses twitter, we think it has a much larger influence. Twitter is like a narrative breeding ground, and those narratives are then picked up by journalists, which are then propagated in mainstream media and broadcast to people who aren't on twitter.

That's at least our thinking. We should probably be more explicit about what our methodology is (and why)

[escapedmoose]

That makes perfect sense, and I believe you’re right about the eventual influence that trickles down from Twitter (though I think a lot of the vitriol gets diluted in the process). n=1, I would have had a much better initial impression of the site if the Twitter connection/methodology was more explicit. Especially if you explained your purpose for the connection, as you’ve done here.

[notduncansmith]

This is a great point. It’s also worth considering the impact that Twitter’s algorithms have on which posts get engagement and correspondingly show up in searches for prominent opinions. You may want to curate certain Twitter accounts that accurately represent the stances of various factions (various members of government, celebrities/influencers, publications with various degrees of partisanship, etc) to check in on for takes on narratives, in addition to talking to more non-Twitter people.

[netsharc]

This assumes people's stated reasons for supporting/hating things are their actual reasons. As I said in another thread: a lot of times people just grasp the closest semi-logical explanation for the decisions that makes them look decent, because in their mind of course they're a decent person.

Like some Europeans enthusiastically welcoming Ukranian refugees although they were hostile towards Middle Eastern refugees. So they rationalize by saying these are women and children, and the M.E. refugees were men who should've stayed and faced (fought) their government's bullets.

IMO the Republican's reasons for a lot of things is just to retain power. Things like voter disenfrachisement, or opposing anything the Dems wants, because if the Dems get things pushed through, and people like it, it will make them (GOP) look bad.

Will you start writing "The reason this side opposes this is because they want to sabotage it for the other side and make them look bad, who cares about the public who's getting screwed"? You won't be seeing this on Twitter...