Mapping Public Discourse Through Social Media Data

Young woman looks at her phone while standing in a subway car

Problem

Traditional surveys cannot capture the real-time dynamics of social media's influence on American public opinion.

Public opinion research faces a critical challenge in understanding the gap between majority views captured in surveys and policy outcomes influenced by social media advocacy. While traditional surveys like NORC’s General Social Survey (GSS) provide reliable snapshots of public sentiment, they cannot track how organized social media campaigns can effectively shape policy despite not reflecting majority opinion.

Our Social Data Collaboratory (SDC) recognized the need to analyze how different platforms and advocacy groups influence public discourse to better understand this dynamic. Our research aligns with NORC's mission of delivering comprehensive insights by examining not just what people think, but also evaluating how organized campaigns can impact policy even when they do not reflect broader public opinion.

Solution

NORC created a cross-platform social media archive to analyze how organized advocacy shapes public discourse and policy.

NORC's Social Data Collaboratory created the first-of-its-kind General Social Media Archive (GSMA), a pioneering public resource that complements traditional opinion research like the GSS. This innovative platform analyzed curated social media data through advanced sentiment analysis, delivering comprehensive metrics on public discourse across platforms.

The GSMA processed over 30 million posts from Twitter/X, Facebook, and Instagram using sophisticated data science techniques. By combining machine learning classifiers with human-validated protocols, we achieved 80 percent accuracy in analyzing social conversations at scale across each platform's unique environment.

Result

GSMA revealed social media's influence on policy while creating innovative tools, such as a marijuana legalization dashboard, for tracking public discourse.

Our research revealed distinct platform dynamics in shaping public discourse and policy: Facebook emerged as a hub for advocacy groups, Twitter amplified news coverage, and Instagram captured younger voices. Through GSMA's specialized dashboards, we conducted key case studies, including an abortion discourse analysis showing how minority views influenced policy through consistent advocacy, and a marijuana legalization study tracking Twitter sentiment from 2016-2022.

The project expanded to climate change, gay marriage, gun control, and taxation, demonstrating how social media analysis enhanced traditional survey research in understanding opinion formation and policy change. While pro-choice sentiment peaked during major events and aligned with survey majorities, pro-life groups maintained steady engagement between events, illustrating how organized advocacy shaped policy outcomes.