{"id":1941,"date":"2012-08-07T15:46:35","date_gmt":"2012-08-07T15:46:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.learningaloud.com\/blurts\/?p=1941"},"modified":"2012-08-07T16:30:46","modified_gmt":"2012-08-07T16:30:46","slug":"twitter-as-a-gauge-of-public-political-sentiment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.learningaloud.com\/blurts\/2012\/08\/07\/twitter-as-a-gauge-of-public-political-sentiment\/","title":{"rendered":"Twitter as a Gauge of Public Political Sentiment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Without getting into my personal political beliefs, let me just make the comment that the political sentiments I frequently hear seem completely irrational. Hence, I have concluded that political leanings have little to do with rational thought and logic, but some form of emotion that is easily manipulated by television sound bites.<\/p>\n

Anyway, despite my frustration regarding how informing voters is accomplished, I am interested in political opinion. The idea of mining Twitter for insights into public sentiment makes some sense. I am so tired of hearing about donations as a measure of this or that. I understand that those who tweet are not necessarily representative, but it is interesting to view trends and attempt to understand what might trigger changes. There must be some educational value in thinking about such things.<\/p>\n

The Twitter Political Index<\/a> is an attempt to graph trends day by day. I wish a little more detail was provided regarding the methodology, but I guess the lack of an apparent logic is consistent with everything else about the political process.<\/p>\n

Topsy sifts through Twitter messages and uses advanced semantic analysis software to determine if someone is in support of a candidate, or a detractor. [from the developer]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Without getting into my personal political beliefs, let me just make the comment that the political sentiments I frequently hear seem completely irrational. Hence, I have concluded that political leanings have little to do with rational thought and logic, but … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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