Back in the mid-1980s, Rolling Stone Magazine ran a Perception vs. Reality ad campaign to counter the belief that its readership was predominately pot-smoking rockers who couldn’t hold a job.
At that time, as a copywriter in the world of ad agencies, the success of this ad campaign was a huge “Ah-ha!” moment for me.
Though I knew the media highly influences the popular perception of virtually anything, the Rolling Stone campaign drove home the point how often perception is divorced from reality.
From this moment on, I’ve always made a point of researching stats to compare popular perception against the reality of hard numbers.
Democratic Party Twitter Wars
In a recent piece published by the New York Times, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appeared to take a swipe at Democratic House Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley – also known as “the Squad.”
“All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world,” Pelosi said. “But they didn’t have any following. They’re four people and that’s how many votes they got.”
www.nytimes.com/...
This triggered push-back from the Squad’s twitter followers -- especially the 4-million-plus who follow @AOC.
This inter-party kerfuffle prompted me to dig into the numbers to evaluate whether or not twitter is an accurate gauge of political trends in the U.S.
The Stats According To Pew Research Center:
22% of U.S. adults use twitter
10% of U.S. adult twitter users create 80% of tweets
36% of U.S. adult twitter users identify with the Democratic Party
29% of U.S. adult twitter users identify as Independents
21% of U.S. adult twitter users identify with the Republican Party
42% of U.S. adult twitter users have at least a bachelor’s degree
41% of U.S. adult twitter users have a household income above $75,000
36% of U.S. adult twitter users have a household income between $30,000 and $74,999
23% of U.S. adult twitter users have a household income under $30,000
#Hashtag: Perception vs. Reality
If 22% of the estimated 252,063,800 adults in the U.S. use twitter, this puts the total number of adult twitter users in this country at 55,454,036.
It also means 78% of adult Americans do not use twitter or, for that matter, are not particularly influenced by twitter.
Since 36% of twitter U.S. adult users identify with the Democratic Party, this number further breaks down to just under 20-million.
For the sake of discussion, let’s agree to assume that AOC’s 4-million-plus twitter followers are representative of the progressive left who vote for D-party candidates.
This would mean approximately one-fifth of those who identify as democrats on twitter support AOC and her policies -- “on twitter” being the operative phrase.
The Downside of Governing Via Twitter
If only 10% of the 55-thousand-plus adult twitter users in the U.S. create 80% of tweets on any given day, it counters the notion that political topics trending on twitter accurately reflect the hearts and minds of most Americans, regardless of their political affiliation.
If governing by tweet had a net-positive effect, why does Trump -- with his 61.9-million twitter followers and over 43-thousand tweets -- have a 54% disapproval rating?
An article published by The Atlantic sums it all up rather well:
The Problem Isn’t Twitter. It’s That You Care About Twitter.
Political leaders believe that the views they encounter online are representative of the “general public.” They’re not.
“… If elected representatives treat Twitter as representative of public opinion, they will fail to be responsive to the actual views of their constituents; political journalists will obsess over scandals and debates that don’t interest most of their readers; and political campaigns may lose eminently winnable elections….”
The entire article is well worth the read: www.theatlantic.com/...
Sources:
https://www.pewinternet.org/2019/04/24/sizing-up-twitter-users/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/282087/number-of-monthly-active-twitter-users/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/186675/share-of-us-adults-using-twitter-since-2009/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/250172/social-network-usage-of-us-teens-and-young-adults/
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/10/share-of-u-s-adults-using-social-media-including-facebook-is-mostly-unchanged-since-2018/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/
https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/24/pew-u-s-adult-twitter-users-tend-to-be-younger-more-democratic-10-create-80-of-tweets/
http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/survey/2017/united-states-2017/