Inspired by some brainstorming, our group sought to examine trends surrounding the term “Womens March” from 01/01/2017-01/31/2017.
Latest Activity:
We observed that most of the buzz around this event took place during the marches on Saturday, January 21st, and shortly thereafter. This reflects the in-the-moment nature of Twitter and social media – those who could not attend were given play-by-play updates throughout. It’s notable that many of these tweets did not come from the “average Joe” who actually marched, as cellphone reception in the immediate protest locations could be difficult to find and maintain, given the volume of participants.
Word Cloud:
The most commonly used words directly opposed the values that many marchers were standing for. We saw terms like “unbornlivesmatter,” “prolife,” and “marchforlife,” mentions of conservative-leaning news commentators including @charliekirk11, and references to the Patriot Journalists Network (pjnet.) After analysis, we concluded that those on the left-leaning side of these issues were less vocal on twitter during this period because they were more likely to be participating in one of the marches. The volume of tweets coming from right-leaning viewpoints may have been a way for dissenters to counteract the Marches.
BuzzGraph:
The buzzgraph showed that the phrase “DC” was common during this period, possibly since the largest march of the day was held in Washington D.C. We also noticed that references to the immigration ban were prominent, proving the overlap of these two contentious issues.
Geography:
We were not surprised to see that the most retweets on this topic took place in the United States. It was the location of the original Women’s March on Washington, which came in direct response to the political climate surrounding the US presidential inauguration.
Most Retweeted:
the british womens march signs are definitely my favourite pic.twitter.com/ToXGmadxbB
— ㅤ (@ronaIdbilius) January 21, 2017
The most retweeted tweet came from an account that has a twitter following of over 15.4K users, many of whom are very engaged on social media internet fandoms. This tweet took off after popular musician and Youtube sensation Troye Sivan retweeted it. His fan base is wide-reaching across the globe and incredibly vocal on social issues, including those of women and the LGBTQ community.
By: Katie Conti, Bethany Bourgault, Christy Fox, Jacob Arbittier