A recent Pew Research Center study argued that social media and traditional press reacted to the Democratic and Republican conventions differently. However, the fine print showed that humans decided the tone of the traditional media stories while the Center relied on automated sentiment analysis which isn’t always right and in fact can be wrong most of the time.
However, the study touched on the notion that the type of posts and commentary are different on social media vs. traditional media. For instance, the Obama campaign insisted that he won because he lied while traditional news simply said that Romney won among undecided voters.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xZniwrAwZGY]On Twitter, with the help of live fact-checking by organizations like the NY Times, users were informed that a number of things Mitt Romney said were not true. Difference in sentiments about the candidates is absolutely affected by if those surveyed were given truthful information.
On the topic of the conventions, many were reacting positively to Bill Clinton’s speech on Twitter while some on Fox News were unsurprisingly critical of it
On the Republican side, many on Twitter enjoyed Paul Ryan’s speech, but after talk, many criticized Ryan or lying. Even regularly conservative mouthpiece Fox News (which another study found makes people less informed than those who watch no news) published an article saying
So, in the end the study shows not a whole not of anything definitive. People who get their news on Twitter can have opinions of candidates or conventions which aren’t based on fact just as easily as those who get it via more traditional means.
