Tag: Public opinion

According to a new survey by Pew Research Center, Twitter can’t be relied upon to gauge public opinion. The reaction to big national and political news on the social network differs widely from the responses to widely-distributed surveys. More specifically, Twitter reactions happen to be more Liberal than the national average; for instance, reactions to the federal court ruling the California same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional were generally positive on Twitter, while across the board they were more mixed. So what does this mean? It just means that those who Tweet, particularly those who Tweet about the news, aren’t necessarily representative of the public at large and are instad their own demographic: mostly young and left-leaning.