Social media as public opinion: How journalists use social media to represent public opinion

Journalism ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (8) ◽  
pp. 1070-1086 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shannon C McGregor
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
The Public ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Media Companies ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Press ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
Shed Light

Public opinion, as necessary a concept it is to the underpinnings of democracy, is a socially constructed representation of the public that is forged by the methods and data from which it is derived, as well as how it is understood by those tasked with evaluating and utilizing it. I examine how social media manifests as public opinion in the news and how these practices shape journalistic routines. I draw from a content analysis of news stories about the 2016 US election, as well as interviews with journalists, to shed light on evolving practices that inform the use of social media to represent public opinion. I find that despite social media users not reflecting the electorate, the press reported online sentiments and trends as a form of public opinion that services the horserace narrative and complements survey polling and vox populi quotes. These practices are woven into professional routines – journalists looked to social media to reflect public opinion, especially in the wake of media events like debates. Journalists worried about an overreliance on social media to inform coverage, especially Dataminr alerts and journalists’ own highly curated Twitter feeds. Hybrid flows of information between journalists, campaigns, and social media companies inform conceptions of public opinion.

scholarly journals Social media communication: content analysis of Indonesian parliament instagram account

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 746-763
Author(s):  
Achmad Jamil ◽  
Eriyanto Eriyanto
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Media Communication ◽  
Dialogic Communication ◽  
The Public ◽  
Thematic Units ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
Social Media Communication

This study aimed to analyse the dialogic communication by The House of Representatives through Instagram of the Republic of Indonesia (DPR-RI) as part of public institutions. This study is prompted by the low public trust in DPR using dialogic communication in Instagram. DPR-RI Instagram account is one of the most popular accounts among Indonesian government bodies’ Instagram accounts. Having 470,000 followers, DPR_RI’s Instagram has uploaded 6,347 photos and videos. The research method used was quantitative content analysis. This study also used thematic units that examined the topic or discussion of a text. The populations in this study were the posts on the Instagram account of DPR RI (@dpr_ri) from January 2015 to December 2020. The sample in this study amounted to 600 posts where, in each year, 100 posts were taken as a sample. The result indicates that DPR Instagram account has not applied the principle of dialogic communication. The low number of posts suggesting a dialogue with the public and stakeholders signifies this finding. DPR could use the results of this study to improve their public communication, especially in the use of social media.

The Media Event as Enhanced News Story

2019 ◽  
pp. 781-790
Author(s):  
Andrew Fox
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Final Conclusion ◽  
News Story ◽  
News Production ◽  
The Public ◽  
News Stories ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Media ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
Media Event

Social media has, over the past decade, become a significant method of communication. People can now interact with each other more easily and more frequently than in the past thanks to websites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. This chapter concerns itself with examining how social media has enabled the public and the news broadcasters to work more closely together. Explored are three key elements. Firstly, there is a review of literature which discusses issues of convergence and the changing nature of news production. Secondly, three major news stories from 2015 act as case studies to discuss how the public contributed to the “eventisation” of the stories through the use of social media platforms. These analytical elements of the chapter feed into the broader context, which is how a media event is now defined given the changing nature of the public's role in news production. The chapter concludes by offering an explanation as to how a media event can now be potentially driven by the public's interaction with the news organisations through social media. Therefore the overarching conclusion that is reached is that the media event as defined in the traditional sense (a live broadcast) has been superseded by 24 hour rolling news channels constant live coverage of news events and that the broadcasters are increasingly reliant on a public contribution. We now have a middle tier between a traditional news story and a media event, the enhanced news story. The final conclusion of the chapter is that it is possible that an enhanced news story can easily become a media event but we need to be cautious not to be seen to be “over eventising” some stories for the sake of filling schedules.

The Media Event as Enhanced News Story

2016 ◽  
pp. 17-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Fox
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Final Conclusion ◽  
News Story ◽  
News Production ◽  
The Public ◽  
News Stories ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Media ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
Media Event

Social media has, over the past decade, become a significant method of communication. People can now interact with each other more easily and more frequently than in the past thanks to websites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. This chapter concerns itself with examining how social media has enabled the public and the news broadcasters to work more closely together. Explored are three key elements. Firstly, there is a review of literature which discusses issues of convergence and the changing nature of news production. Secondly, three major news stories from 2015 act as case studies to discuss how the public contributed to the “eventisation” of the stories through the use of social media platforms. These analytical elements of the chapter feed into the broader context, which is how a media event is now defined given the changing nature of the public's role in news production. The chapter concludes by offering an explanation as to how a media event can now be potentially driven by the public's interaction with the news organisations through social media. Therefore the overarching conclusion that is reached is that the media event as defined in the traditional sense (a live broadcast) has been superseded by 24 hour rolling news channels constant live coverage of news events and that the broadcasters are increasingly reliant on a public contribution. We now have a middle tier between a traditional news story and a media event, the enhanced news story. The final conclusion of the chapter is that it is possible that an enhanced news story can easily become a media event but we need to be cautious not to be seen to be “over eventising” some stories for the sake of filling schedules.

scholarly journals Content Analysis of Social Media: Public and Government Response to COVID-19 Pandemic in Indonesia

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 16
Author(s):  
Gugun Geusan Akbar ◽  
Dede Kurniadi ◽  
Nita Nurliawati
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Complete Analysis ◽  
The Public ◽  
Government Response ◽  
Response Data ◽  
The Government ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
Support Decision Making

Nowadays, the use of social media to analyze disaster responses has become important. However, its application to support decision-making by the Government during disasters still present significant challenges. This article offers a complete analysis of the response of the public and the Government in dealing with the COVID-19 Pandemics in Indonesia. The content analysis uses to analyze the tweet post on Twitter to determine the public and government response. Data was collected from public and government tweets on Twitter and producing 11,578 community tweets from the public and 958 tweets from the government account. This data was collected from 2nd March until 15th April 2020. Public comments are sorted into six categories of comments, that is fate, logic, government mention, worry, scientist, and impression, while sentiments are classified as positive, negative, and neutral. Government comments are sorted into eight categories, namely information, education, operating, warnings, resources provision, volunteer recruitment, and rumors management. The results showed that the public encourages and supports the Government to cope with a pandemic think rationally and logically in dealing with this Pandemic. In addition, the study indicates that the Government has not used social media as a medium for communicating with the public. The quality of government response is not good, especially in the categories of information on operations, warnings, resources provision, recruitment of volunteers, and rumors management. The implication of this study suggests how the data might be useful for the Government in delivering information during the Pandemic.

scholarly journals “Taking the Temperature of the Room”

2020 ◽  
Vol 84 (S1) ◽  
pp. 236-256
Author(s):  
Shannon C McGregor
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Opinion Formation ◽  
Social Media Data ◽  
The Public ◽  
Media System ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Development ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
Media Data

Abstract For most of the twentieth century, public opinion was nearly analogous with polling. Enter social media, which has upended the social, technical, and communication contingencies upon which public opinion is constructed. This study documents how political professionals turn to social media to understand the public, charting important implications for the practice of campaigning as well as the study of public opinion itself. An analysis of in-depth interviews with 13 professionals from 2016 US presidential campaigns details how they use social media to understand and represent public opinion. I map these uses of social media onto a theoretical model, accounting for quantitative and qualitative measurement, for instrumental and symbolic purposes. Campaigns’ use of social media data to infer and symbolize public opinion is a new development in the relationship between campaigns and supporters. These new tools and symbols of public opinion are shaped by campaigns and drive press coverage (McGregor 2019), highlighting the hybrid logic of the political media system (Chadwick 2017). The model I present brings much-needed attention to qualitative data, a novel aspect of social media in understanding public opinion. The use of social media data to understand the public, for all its problems of representativeness, may provide a retort to long-standing criticisms of surveys—specifically that surveys do not reveal hierarchical, social, or public aspects of opinion formation (Blumer 1948; Herbst 1998; Cramer 2016). This model highlights a need to explicate what can—and cannot—be understood about public opinion via social media.

How to Tell the Truth without Outraging the Press?

MedienJournal ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
Li Xiguang
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
The Public ◽  
News Stories ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government ◽  
Chinese News Media

The commercialization of meclia in China has cultivated a new journalism business model characterized with scandalization, sensationalization, exaggeration, oversimplification, highly opinionated news stories, one-sidedly reporting, fabrication and hate reporting, which have clone more harm than good to the public affairs. Today the Chinese journalists are more prey to the manipu/ation of the emotions of the audiences than being a faithful messenger for the public. Une/er such a media environment, in case of news events, particularly, during crisis, it is not the media being scared by the government. but the media itself is scaring the government into silence. The Chinese news media have grown so negative and so cynica/ that it has produced growing popular clistrust of the government and the government officials. Entering a freer but fearful commercially mediated society, the Chinese government is totally tmprepared in engaging the Chinese press effectively and has lost its ability for setting public agenda and shaping public opinions. 

COVID-19 and the politicisation of medical preprints on Twitter: Quantitative Analysis of Social Media Data (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Urman ◽  
Stefania Ionescu ◽  
David Garcia ◽  
Anikó Hannák
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Direct Effect ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
The Public ◽  
Media Companies ◽  
Preventative Measures ◽  
Twitter Users ◽  
New Research ◽  
Sharing Patterns ◽  
Political Divide

BACKGROUND Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists have been willing to share their results quickly to speed up the development of potential treatments and/or a vaccine. At the same time, traditional peer-review-based publication systems are not always able to process new research promptly. This has contributed to a surge in the number of medical preprints published since January 2020. In the absence of a vaccine, preventative measures such as social distancing are most helpful in slowing the spread of COVID-19. Their effectiveness can be undermined if the public does not comply with them. Hence, public discourse can have a direct effect on the progression of the pandemic. Research shows that social media discussions on COVID-19 are driven mainly by the findings from preprints, not peer-reviewed papers, highlighting the need to examine the ways medical preprints are shared and discussed online. OBJECTIVE We examine the patterns of medRxiv preprint sharing on Twitter to establish (1) whether the number of tweets linking to medRxiv increased with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic; (2) which medical preprints were mentioned on Twitter most often; (3) whether medRxiv sharing patterns on Twitter exhibit political partisanship; (4) whether the discourse surrounding medical preprints among Twitter users has changed throughout the pandemic. METHODS The analysis is based on tweets (n=557,405) containing links to medRxriv preprint repository that were posted between the creation of the repository in June 2019 and June 2020. The study relies on a combination of statistical techniques and text analysis methods. RESULTS Since January 2020, the number of tweets linking to medRxiv has increased drastically, peaking in April 2020 with a subsequent cool-down. Before the pandemic, preprints were shared predominantly by users we identify as medical professionals and scientists. After January 2020, other users, including politically-engaged ones, have started increasingly tweeting about medRxiv. Our findings indicate a political divide in sharing patterns of the top-10 most-tweeted preprints. All of them were shared more frequently by users who describe themselves as Republicans than by users who describe themselves as Democrats. Finally, we observe a change in the discourse around medRxiv preprints. Pre-pandemic tweets linking to them were predominantly using the word “preprint”. In February 2020 “preprint” was taken over by the word “study”. Our analysis suggests this change is at least partially driven by politically-engaged users. Widely shared medical preprints can have a direct effect on the public discourse around COVID-19, which in turn can affect the societies’ willingness to comply with preventative measures. This calls for an increased responsibility when dealing with medical preprints from all parties involved: scientists, preprint repositories, media, politicians, and social media companies. CONCLUSIONS Widely shared medical preprints can have a direct effect on the public discourse around COVID-19, which in turn can affect the societies’ willingness to comply with preventative measures. This calls for an increased responsibility when dealing with medical preprints from all parties involved: scientists, preprint repositories, media, politicians, and social media companies.

Constructing Public Opinion and Manipulating Symbols: China's Press Cover-age of the Student Movement in 1989

1995 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 412-425 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guo-Qiang Zhang ◽  
Sidney Kraus
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Student Movement ◽  
Dominant Ideology ◽  
Tiananmen Square ◽  
The Press ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Military

This content analysis of Chinese newspapers before and after the Tiananmen Square protest examines the symbolic representation of the Student Movement of 1989 in China. The study reveals that top leaders manipulated symbols given to the media and that these symbols rigorously highlighted the dominant ideology of the Chinese Communist Party and isolated the movement participants. Officials attempted to legitimize the military suppression of the movement. The press construction of public opinion echoed the hegemonic process created and maintained by the party structure.

Profiling the Users of High Influence on Social Media in the Context of Public Events

2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 36-49
Author(s):  
Lu An ◽  
Junyang Hu ◽  
Manting Xu ◽  
Gang Li ◽  
Chuanming Yu
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Emergency Management ◽  
Emotional Support ◽  
Opinion Leader ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Events ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Influential Users

The highly influential users on social media platforms may lead the public opinion about public events and have positive or negative effects on the later evolution of events. Identifying highly influential users on social media is of great significance for the management of public opinion in the context of public events. In this study, the highly influential users of social media are divided into three types (i.e., topic initiator, opinion leader, and opinion reverser). A method of profiling highly influential users is proposed based on topic consistency and emotional support. The event of “Jiankui He Editing the Infants' Genes” was investigated. The three types of users were identified, and their opinion differences and dynamic evolution were revealed. The comprehensive profiles of highly influential users were constructed. The findings can help emergency management departments master the focus of attention and emotional attitudes of the key users and provide the method and data support for opinion management and decision-making of public events.

Public relations in the age of data: corporate perspectives on social media analytics (SMA)

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathy R. Fitzpatrick ◽  
Paula L. Weissman
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Relations ◽  
Social Media Analytics ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
Management Function ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Corporate Brands ◽  
Depth Interviews

PurposeThe aim of this study was to understand how public relations leaders view and use social media analytics (SMA) and the impact of SMA on the public relations function.Design/methodology/approachThe research involved in-depth interviews with chief communication officers (CCOs) from leading multinational corporate brands.FindingsThe findings revealed that although CCOs perceive social media analytics as strategically important to the advancement of public relations, the use of social media data is slowed by challenges associated with building SMA capacity.Theoretical and practical implications – The research extends public relations theory on public relations as a strategic management function and provides practical insights for building SMA capabilities.Originality/valueThe study is among the first to provide empirical evidence of how companies are using social media analytics to enhance public relations efforts.

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