Twitter reaction doesn’t reflect public opinion

Media outlets across the United States often use social media websites like Twitter to gauge the public’s opinion. But a new study from the Pew Research Center has found that how people react on Twitter is often at odds with overall public opinion, leaving American news outlets presenting a skewed reality of how the public really feels, media experts told RIA Novosti.

“Much of the difference may have to do with both the narrow sliver of the public represented on Twitter as well as who among that slice chose to take part in any one conversation,” the study’s authors said in their report.

For instance in February 2012, a US federal court ruled that a California law banning same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, researchers found that 46 percent of the reaction on Twitter was positive with only eight percent of Tweets reflecting a negative tone.

But public opinion surveys measured in a Pew national poll had a very different outcome. Of those who had heard about the ruling 44 percent indicated they were disappointed or angry with the judgment while 33 percent of respondents said they were pleased with the outcome.

The lack of consistent similarities between Twitter reaction and public opinion is why media industry experts caution news outlets against providing social media reaction without additional context.

“We can certainly talk about the Twitter reaction, but we can’t generalize it,” Regina McCombs, a member of the multimedia and mobile journalism faculty at the nonprofit journalism school, The Poynter Institute, told RIA Novosti.

“Only 85 percent of people in the US use the Internet” said McCombs, adding that only 16 percent of those users are on Twitter. “We just shouldn’t use it as a proxy for what everyone is thinking,” she said.

Of the eight events the Pew Center tracked, there were only two cases where the Twitter reaction mirrored public opinion: Romney’ selection of Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate and the Supreme Court’s ruling on Obama’s Affordable Care Act, overhauling the US health insurance system.