• Social media analysis: 'Bayonets' fail to cut Romney, but overall debate sentiment swings Obama's way

    NBC Politics and Crimson Hexagon Inc.

    Campaign social media tracking for Tuesday, Oct. 23. Click the image for the full report.

    By M. Alex Johnson, NBC News

    A majority of social media users believes President Barack Obama did better in this week's foreign policy presidential debate than Republican nominee Mitt Romney did, according to NBC Politics' computer-assisted analysis of almost 1 million posts during and after the debate.

    M. Alex Johnson M. Alex Johnson is a reporter for NBC News. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

    The data indicate that Obama's attack line about "horses and bayonets" Monday night had less effect than was presumed in the immediate post-debate media analysis — and may even have hurt Obama as much as it helped him, once Romney partisans widely circulated rebuttals from conservative-leaning commentators.

    But more commenters cited Romney's frequent agreements with Obama as evidence that he had nothing new to offer on foreign policy, helping Obama's advantage grow as time has passed.

    NBC Politics analyzed 988,000 post-debate posts on Twitter and Facebook using a tool called ForSight, a data platform developed by Crimson Hexagon Inc., which many research and business organizations have adopted to gauge public opinion in new media. It isn't the same as traditional surveys, which seek to reflect national opinion; instead, it's a broad, non-predictive snapshot of what's being said by Americans who follow politics and are active on Facebook, Twitter or both at a particular moment in time, and why they're saying it.

    Overall, a slim majority favored Obama in comments posted through 1:30 p.m. ET Wednesday:

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    That works out to a 51 percent to 49 percent advantage among people who expressed a clear preference for either candidate.

    More social media analysis from NBCPolitics.com

    Explainer: Can you scientifically quantify social media opinion?

    Favorable sentiment swung noticeably as media commentators weighed in with their arguments. For example, Obama initially held a slim advantage the day after the debate:

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    A visual representation of the topics people discussed overnight and into early Tuesday morning indicates that people reacted to broad impressions:

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    But after commentators and analysts began being heard on the morning television news shows and read in the morning papers, people developed firmer positions as the day progressed. A different visualization breaks out the specific topics people talked about Tuesday — not only Iran and other foreign policy issues, but also economic issues:

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    People who favored Romney were impressed by his firmness and his arguments that the administration mishandled the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, last month:

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    Twitter.com — 1:25 a.m. ET, Oct. 24

    People who favored Obama, by contrast, picked up on both candidates' insistence on pivoting toward the economy:

    NBC Politics and Crimson Hexagon Inc.

    Twitter.com — 9:36 p.m. ET Oct. 22

    What appeared to have been a key moment in the debate came when Obama responded to Romney's assertion that the U.S. military was weaker today than it had ever been, specifically citing what he characterized as the shrinking U.S. warship fleet. Obama's rejoinder lit up Twitter and Facebook.

    You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military's changed.

    The Hill's Karen Finney and author Goldie Taylor discuss President Barack Obama's "horses and bayonets" debate line.

    On Tuesday, however, media organizations — among them The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times — and conservative commentators began running the numbers, and they largely concluded that Obama's zinger wasn't completely justified.

    One article in particular, by the commentator AWR Hawkins on the conservative site Breitbart.com, gained heavy traction among conservative commentators on social media, being cited hundreds of times by Romney defenders as evidence that Obama didn't know what he was talking about:

    Twitter.com — 11:04 p.m. ET Oct. 23

    Facebook.com — 6:33 a.m. ET Oct. 23

    Obama supporters began a counterattack Wednesday, widely circulating Rush Limbaugh's remarks Tuesday:

    In fact, a lot of people on our side thought he agreed with Obama too much. A lot of people on our side didn't like that debate last night, folks, I'll just tell you. If my circle of friends is any indication, a lot of people thought Romney got his clock cleaned, didn't like it at all, think the election's lost. I'm not kidding you.

    The topic dominated pro-Obama discussion late Tuesday through midday Wednesday:

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    Twitter.com — 11:23 p.m. ET Oct. 23

    Facebook.com — 9:25 p.m. ET Oct. 23

    Commentary like that appeared to be taking a toll. Overall, Obama's advantage remained within a couple of points. But then there's the chart just for Wednesday:

    NBC Politics and Crimson Hexagon Inc.

  • Social media users welcome health care ruling but see November peril for Obama

    The Washington Post's E.J. Dionne and MSNBC political analyst Charlie Cook debate the role of health care in the presidential race.

    By M. Alex Johnson, msnbc.com

    Most social media users approve of the Supreme Court's health care ruling last week but believe it will help Republicans in the November election, according to msnbc.com's computer-assisted analysis of tens of thousands of posts on Twitter and Facebook.

    M. Alex Johnson M. Alex Johnson is a reporter for msnbc.com. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

    The court upheld nearly all of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on a 5-4 vote Thursday. The consensus in news reports and among political pundits was that the ruling was a major victory for President Barack Obama.

    But among people who use social networking sites, 56 percent of those who stated a clear opinion on the decision's political impact said they thought it was more likely to energize Republican voters in November. Forty-four percent said it was likely to be more helpful for Democrats.

    (Msnbc.com analyzed 175,000 Twitter and Facebook posts mentioning the ruling from midday Thursday through midday Monday. The analysis uses a tool called ForSight, a data platform developed by Crimson Hexagon Inc., which is used by many media and research organizations to gauge public opinion in new media. Crimson Hexagon reports a 3-percentage-point margin of sampling error for this type of online sentiment analysis.)

    More social media analysis from NBCPolitics.com

    Overall, 60 percent of online commenters approved of the decision, with many of them telling stories about how it would have an immediate impact on their families.

    Supreme Court upholds health care law
    Health care ruling could leave poorest Americans at greatest risk

    Writing on Facebook, Cathy Weller of Cocoa Beach, Fla., described herself as "a fiscal conservative, libertarian leaning, social progressive." She wrote of losing her health insurance when she lost her job and the difficulty she had insuring herself because of her pre-existing condition — cancer:

    All of a sudden I found myself researching health insurance options. Imagine my surprise to find there were none. None. Not a few expensive ones, but none. It didn't matter if I was willing to pay $10,000 a month for health insurance, it was just not available to me, anywhere for any amount of money. This was the first time I personally came up against the issue of health insurance availability having worked constantly up to that point and always having employer offered insurance.


    Of opponents of the act, Weller wrote: "I wonder at their sense of security. Do they really imagine themselves to be invulnerable to what so many fellow citizens are going through?"

    Nearly a quarter of those supporting the decision stressed its impact on ending what they see as a bias against women in the current health care system.

    Among them was Lisa Kitinoja of Eugene, Ore., who administers a nonprofit organization:

    Twitter.com

    Many opponents complained that the act would make health care more expensive, including Darren Perkins of Kansas City, Mo.:

    Twitter.com

    Others saw it as unconstitutionally giving the federal government too much control over people's lives, like Andrew Hastings, an engineer in San Diego:

    Facebook.com

    The 60 percent-to-40 percent split among social media users in favor of the ruling runs counter to public opinion surveys, which generally indicate that a slight majority opposes the health care act. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Sunday put support at 48 percent.

    The social media results, however, could be a reflection of rising support since the Supreme Court ruling. The Reuters/Ipsos poll, for example, found that before Thursday, support was only 43 percent before rising to 48 percent. (Support in msnbc.com's analysis also showed support trending up since the ruling, hitting 62 percent Monday.)

    They also may be explained by the demographics of the social media audience. The Pew Internet & American Life Project, which uses ForSight in its statistical analysis of social media, reported in March that people who identify themselves as liberal are more likely to use social networking sites than are people who self identify as conservatives.

    Even so, commenters concluded that Republicans would benefit from the ruling politically more than Democrats, by 56 percent to 44 percent.

    Mike Wasylik, a lawyer in Tampa, Fla., wrote:

    Twitter.com

    Chris Twining, a computer consultant in Wildomar, Calif., explained on Facebook:

    Facebook.com

    And Michael Gorka of Newport News, Va., said:

    Facebook.com

    Real-world evidence may support that analysis — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's campaign reported that Friday was its biggest fundraising day from individual donors so far.

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  • Strong online support for Obama's same-sex marriage stance; election impact disputed

    Crimson Hexagon Inc.

    While general online sentiment strongly favored President Barack Obama's statement, judgments of its political impact were much more closely divided.

    By M. Alex Johnson, msnbc.com

    Online reaction to President Barack Obama's endorsement of same-sex marriage is running 3-to-1 in his favor, but commenters are sharply divided over whether it will help him or hurt him in November, according to a computer-assisted analysis of hundreds of thousands of social media posts in the first 24 hours after the announcement.

    M. Alex Johnson

    M. Alex Johnson is a reporter for msnbc.com. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

    The analysis examined 532,000 posts on Twitter and Facebook, about 300,000 of which expressed a clear opinion about Obama's statement. Of those, 72 percent approved of the announcement.

    (The analysis — which ran from 3 p.m. ET Wednesday, when ABC News broadcast its interview with Obama, through 3 p.m. ET Thursday — used a tool called ForSight, a natural-language data platform developed by Crimson Hexagon Inc. For this type of sentiment analysis, Crimson Hexagon reports a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points among the self-selected social media audience. Click here for a detailed explanation.)

    More social media analysis from NBCPolitics.com

    While Obama won widespread praise online, a significant proportion of it was grudging.

    Many supporters of same-sex marriage criticized the president for not having announced his position until now, 3½ years into his presidency. Fully a third of those agreeing with the decision did so while asking, in essence, "What took you so long?" 

    Twitter.com

    Twitter.com

    A further 18 percent of those agreeing with the announcement complained that the president hadn't gone far enough, with some noting that he stopped short of taking any concrete action, such as proposing legislation or issuing an executive order to have federal agencies recognize same-sex marriages.

    Twitter.com

    Twitter.com

    By contrast, opponents of Obama's announcement strongly indicated that they believed it was a politically cynical move.
    Nearly half of those opposing the move — 47 percent — expressed sentiments like these:

    Facebook.com

    Twitter.com

    Interestingly, about a fifth of the sample — well more than 100,000 people — chose to analyze the announcement not so much on its merits but on whom it would benefit in the general election. And by 52 percent to 48 percent, a slim majority of those thought it would likely help Obama and other Democrats.

    Twitter.com

    Twitter.com

    The social media analysis is also notable for its variance from public opinion at large. Recent polls generally indicate that only about half of Americans believe same-sex marriages should be legal; the most recent Gallup Poll, taken May 3-6, for example, showed a 50 percent to 48 percent split.

    Following Obama's support of gay marriage, a flood of emotions

    A possible explanation lies in the makeup of the social media audience. 

    The Pew Internet & American Life Project, which uses ForSight in its statistical analysis of social media, reported in March that people who identify themselves as liberal are more likely to use social networking sites than are people who identify as conservatives.

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    Moreover, marketing surveys indicate that people who identify themselves as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered are more frequent users of social media than the population as a whole.

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  • Charges shifted online opinion about George Zimmerman's guilt in Trayvon Martin case

    Crimson Hexagon

    Belief that George Zimmerman isn't guilty of a crime in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin is now a slight majority among commenters expressing a clear opinion on his culpability.
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    By M. Alex Johnson, msnbc.com

    Updated at 1:07 p.m. ET: As soon as George Zimmerman was formally charged last week in the shooting death of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin, public opinion began shifting online, and for much of this week, a slight majority of those expressing an opinion indicated they believed he probably wasn't guilty of violating Florida law, according to msnbc.com's computer-assisted analysis of 2.6 million Internet postings.

    M. Alex Johnson

    M. Alex Johnson is a reporter for msnbc.com. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

    Zimmerman, 28, appeared in court Friday on charges of second-degree murder for shooting and killing Martin, 17, on Feb. 26 in the gated community of Sanford in South Florida. Bond was set at $150,000.

    The findings are best read as a snapshot of how the lodging of charges influenced public opinion online. As it has several times since Feb. 26, opinion began shifting again after the bond hearing, and a small majority of Friday's commentary indicated a belief that Zimmerman is, in fact, guilty.

    The long delay in an arrest or charges, even though Zimmerman admitted shooting Martin, led to protests across the nation and an emotionally charged debate about race and self-defense laws. Martin was black; Zimmerman is the son of a white father and a Hispanic mother.

    Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., shares details from the End Racial Profiling Act, which he is co-sponsoring. Michael Eric Dyson, a professor of sociology at Georgetown University, joins the conversation with MSNBC's Tamron Hall.

    Although the case first drew national attention on March 8, when CBS News aired an interview with Martin's parents — who alleged that their son had been racially profiled and demanded that Zimmerman be arrested — it didn't explode on social media until March 16, when audio of 911 calls from the scene was published.

    The msnbc.com analysis of online forum posts, Facebook posts and Twitter messages since the shooting indicates a striking willingness among commenters to strongly sympathize with the Martin family while at the same time remaining open to the possibility that Zimmerman — who claims he shot Martin in self-defense — may not have committed a crime.


    (The analysis, which runs Feb. 26 though Thursday, uses a tool called ForSight, a natural-language data platform developed by Crimson Hexagon Inc., which is used by many media and research organizations to gauge public opinion in new media, including the Pew Research Center. For this type of sentiment analysis, Crimson Hexagon reports a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points among the self-selected social media audience. Click here for a detailed explanation.)

    Since March 8, support and sympathy for the Martin family have consistently been noted in 80 percent to 85 percent of online comments about the case. For long stretches during that time, however, a majority of those who expressed a clear opinion have argued that while Zimmerman was wrong, he hadn't actually broken the law.

    One of those periods extended from March 14, after Sanford Police Chief Billy Lee said there was no evidence to dispute Zimmerman's claim of self-defense, until March 29, when ABC News published police surveillance video taken the night Martin was shot. The raw video appeared to show no blood or bruises on Zimmerman, seemingly contradicting initial police reports that officers found him bleeding from the back of his head and his nose.

    That video sharply reversed online opinion: On March 27, 63 percent of commenters who expressed a clear opinion on Zimmerman's culpability believed he wasn't guilty of a crime. Two days later, after the ABC broadcast, 67 percent believed that he was:

    Crimson Hexagon

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    Twitter.com

    That majority held — at a lower level ranging from 51 percent to 57 percent — even after enhanced footage of the police video was released April 2, appearing to show a possible injury to the back of Zimmerman's head.

    Until Zimmerman was taken into custody on April 11 and charged with second-degree murder, much of the heavy social media traffic consisted of demands for his arrest. Afterward, with those demands having been met and with Zimmerman's having hired a new attorney who made it clear that he wasn't inclined to discuss the case in public, online comment on the case plummeted by 95 percent:

    Crimson Hexagon

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    Much of this smaller discussion has settled on a debate over the complications of Florida's criminal statute 776  on the justifiable use of deadly force, popularly known as the Stand Your Ground law. The statute places the burden on prosecutors to disprove a defendant's claim that deadly force was justified because of fear of imminent death or serious injury.

    "The thing is, the trial probably won't be very much about the racial aspect," a commenter called Hindsight posted Wednesday on TheBump.com. "It will be about what happened during/after that silence on the 911 tape and whether or not the state can prove that Zimmerman had no cause to feel threatened or that the shooting didn't go down the way Zimmerman claimed."

    TheBump.com

    Majority belief in Zimmerman's guilt held relatively steady — between 50 percent and 58 percent — during the week before he was arrested. Almost immediately afterward, though, it began swinging back toward a belief that Zimmerman hadn't, strictly speaking, committed a crime. On Tuesday — after Reuters reported that Zimmerman's neighbors saw him with bandages on his head and nose the day after Martin was killed — a majority of the comments expressing an opinion indicated a belief that he might not be guilty:

    Crimson Hexagon

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    "The mere fact that we don't know who started the fight leaves room for speculation that you can't prove beyond reasonable doubt it wasn't self defence IMO," a commenter called Cycl1 posted this week on CycloneFanatic.com, a forum for alumni of Iowa State University:

    CycloneFanatic.com

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    It's important to note that throughout the entire case, general public sympathy has strongly been on the Martins' side, even among most of those who argue that Zimmerman may not have committed a crime.

    Since the beginning, 80 percent to 85 percent of commentary has included some expression of sympathy — with two exceptions:

    • On March 23, when President Barack Obama told reporters that he was paying attention to the case — saying, "If I had a son he'd look like Trayvon" — commentary from Obama opponents dropped support for the Martins to 78 percent.

    Twitter.com

    • On April 11, when Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder, expressions of support for the Martins dropped sharply — to 60 percent — as discussion turned to the arrest and the details of the charging documents.

    In both cases, support returned above 80 percent the next day, where it has remained.

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