As January was a big month in regards to political transition, we decided to analyze one of the most controversial topics of the month, the Muslim Ban.
The latest activity graph shows a spike in activity over the announcement date, January 27th, of the ban, and the following days. Between the dates of January 27th and 29th, over 2 million people took to Twitter to voice their opinions and thoughts about the ban. The millions of mentions show the significance of the impact the ban had on social media users.
The ban launched conversations in regards to Muslim immigration, with many utilizing key words such as Muslim ban and Trump. Other noteworthy trending words such as refugee ban, Syria, resist, and protest reveal the public’s overwhelming disapproval of the ban and their support of refugees.
The Twitter activity was primarily located in the United States, but there was still significant global engagement with the U.K.’s activity being 7.9%. Activity was also prevalent in countries with large Muslim and refugee populations including India, France, and Qatar. These stats reveal this is not solely a domestic issue, but a global one.
The most prominent words, Muslim, ban, and Trump are connected to key words such as order, immigrants, unconstitutional, and resist. These buzz words are quite significant as they provide insight to the popular sentiment of the public- a disapproval of the ban.
Watch this video and then try to describe immigrants in dehumanizing terms such as "waves" or "floods." #MuslimBan pic.twitter.com/vTqvE3Nvys
— CJ Werleman (@cjwerleman) January 31, 2017
Twitter users like @cjwerleman expressed this disapproval through methods of rich and emotional content highlighting the plight of immigrants. Through a humanizing video and utilizing #MuslimBan, Werleman was able to achieve the most retweets and engagement over the trending topic.
This analysis shows the power of social media as an outlet for important political and humanitarian discussions.
Laura Kellerman, Kyra Azzato, Matt Schneidman, & Lindsay Curre