Join MTSU School of Journalism faculty and students on campus this Monday for a live, hands-on experiment in using newly developed techniques to detect and describe patterns in Twitter traffic during the first presidential debate.
Word cloud of top terms in #debates2016 tweets as of 9/23/2016
The experiment will start with a demonstration and training session at 6 p.m. in the Center for Innovation in Media’s Room 111 in the John Bragg Media and Entertainment Building. The techniques will involve downloading Twitter traffic captured before and during the debate from Tweet Archivist, including this archive of Tweets that include the #debate hashtag.
UPDATE, 9/22/2016: Well be tracking theand #debates, #debates2016 hashtags and a search of all tweets mentioning either “Clinton” or “Trump.” Twitter and the Commission on Presidential Debates have designated both as the debates’ official hashtags.
Next, we’ll use Microsoft Excel’s PivotTable and filtering tools to:
- Determine the most-frequently-shared tweets, URLs, pictures, videos, and key words and phrases.
- Examine these frequencies both overall and after key moments in the debate.
- Explore patterns of association, such as whether particular types of content co-occur with one candidate’s name moreso than with another’s.
- More.
UPDATE, 9/26/2016: Download this demonstration Excel file to see instructions for, and examples of, each technique we’ll be covering. The file uses 13,620 tweets that included #debates between Sept. 23 and Sept. 25. Click each tab to see each set of instructions or example.
The monitoring and analysis will continue during and after the debate, which is set to start at 8 p.m. Central time and conclude at 9:30 p.m.
There is no charge to attend. Come to watch what happens, learn the analytical techniques, report about the results, or even help with the analysis. For more information, contact MTSU School of Journalism professors Christine Eschenfelder, Dan Eschenfelder, or Ken Blake.