Quantifying Political Discussion from the Universe of Facebook Status Updates

24 Pages Posted: 9 Aug 2013

See all articles by Jaime Settle

Jaime Settle

College of William and Mary

Christopher J. Fariss

University of Michigan at Ann Arbor - Department of Political Science

Robert M. Bond

Ohio State University (OSU)

Jason J. Jones

University of California, San Diego (UCSD); Stony Brook University

James H. Fowler

UC San Diego Division of Social Sciences; University of California, San Diego (UCSD) - Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health

Lorenzo Coviello

University of California, San Diego (UCSD)

Adam Kramer

Facebook, Inc.

Cameron Marlow

Facebook, Inc.

Date Written: August 8, 2013

Abstract

The Internet has fundamentally changed the way we conceptualize public opinion, even beyond the way it has altered the traditional measurement of public attitudes and behaviors using random sampling of the broader population. The data analyzed in this paper offer one of the first comprehensive evaluations of mass political discourse generated via messages posted publicly on Facebook (called “status updates”), and allow us to quantify political discussion on Facebook without relying on self-reported behavior, or data from a limited topical context or sample. We find that while less than 1% of the users who post status updates on Facebook on a given day post a political status update, discussion is remarkably responsive to real-world political events. We suggest that instead of thinking of social media data simply as a measurement tool, we re-conceptualize it as both a way to monitor public discourse and also as a driver of public opinion.

Keywords: Facebook, political discussion, health care reform, 2008 election

Suggested Citation

Settle, Jaime and Fariss, Christopher J. and Bond, Robert M. and Jones, Jason Jeffrey and Jones, Jason Jeffrey and Fowler, James H. and Fowler, James H. and Coviello, Lorenzo and Kramer, Adam and Marlow, Cameron, Quantifying Political Discussion from the Universe of Facebook Status Updates (August 8, 2013). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2307685 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2307685

Jaime Settle (Contact Author)

College of William and Mary ( email )

Williamsburg, VA 23185
United States

Christopher J. Fariss

University of Michigan at Ann Arbor - Department of Political Science ( email )

Ann Arbor, MI 48109
United States

Robert M. Bond

Ohio State University (OSU) ( email )

Blankenship Hall-2010
901 Woody Hayes Drive
Columbus, OH OH 43210
United States

Jason Jeffrey Jones

University of California, San Diego (UCSD) ( email )

9500 Gilman Drive
Mail Code 0502
La Jolla, CA 92093-0112
United States

Stony Brook University ( email )

Health Science Center
Stony Brook, NY 11794
United States

HOME PAGE: http://jasonjones.ninja/

James H. Fowler

UC San Diego Division of Social Sciences ( email )

9500 Gilman Drive
Code 0521
La Jolla, CA 92093-0521
United States

HOME PAGE: http://jhfowler.ucsd.edu

University of California, San Diego (UCSD) - Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health ( email )

La Jolla, CA
United States

HOME PAGE: http://jhfowler.ucsd.edu

Lorenzo Coviello

University of California, San Diego (UCSD) ( email )

9500 Gilman Drive
Mail Code 0502
La Jolla, CA 92093-0112
United States

Adam Kramer

Facebook, Inc. ( email )

1601 S. California Ave.
Palo Alto, CA 94304
United States

Cameron Marlow

Facebook, Inc. ( email )

1601 S. California Ave.
Palo Alto, CA 94304
United States

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
257
Abstract Views
2,698
Rank
191,231
PlumX Metrics