{"id":9580,"date":"2016-11-17T23:30:54","date_gmt":"2016-11-17T23:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mention.com\/blog\/?p=9580"},"modified":"2023-02-21T13:38:12","modified_gmt":"2023-02-21T13:38:12","slug":"debate-conversations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mention.com\/en\/blog\/debate-conversations\/","title":{"rendered":"The Great Debates: Measuring Conversation Patterns Around Presidential Debate Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

I bet you thought you\u2019d stop hearing about the U.S. election now, didn\u2019t you?
\nThink again, it\u2019s not over yet.
\nNow that the election has happened, social media geeks like us can comb back over all the data they\u2019ve collected throughout the past months and look at it in a new light – how did it actually impact things?<\/strong>
\nTake the debates, for example.
\nDuring the presidential and vice presidential debates, people flocked to social media to share their agreement or disagreement with certain talking points. News outlets rushed to declare winners and analyze each response.
\nBut\u00a0what did all that even amount to?<\/strong>\u00a0Were social conversations representative of what actually happened?
\nNow that the election is over and we\u2019ve seen the results, let\u2019s take a look at how debate conversation might have shaped President-Elect Donald Trump\u2019s win.<\/p>\n

Presidential Debate #1: September 26, 2016<\/h2>\n

The first debate set our patterns and expectations, both in terms of what to expect from the debate itself, and the public and media\u2019s reaction to it.
\nWe had seen each candidate debate in the primaries, but given a volatile election season and high tension between parties, the first presidential debate would help to set the tone for the general election season.
\nLet\u2019s take a look at how social media users and the media reacted to it.<\/p>\n

Overall Volume<\/h3>\n

First of all, let\u2019s look at how people discussed the first debate overall, over time. Here is the total conversation the week of the debates:
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\nObviously, the most conversation happened on the day of the debate – that\u2019s a given.
\nBut what\u2019s interesting, especially once you break it down and compare it to other dates as we will late in this report, is the lead-up and \u201ctail.\u201d
\nGiven that this was the first debate of the general election, and the strong opinions of both major party candidates this year, you\u2019d expect a fairly large amount of conversation leading up to the event – especially the day before.
\nHowever, the volume of conversation in the few days before the debate remains fairly flat. Why weren\u2019t social media users and the media talking about the debates more and more leading up to it?<\/strong>
\nIt could be that\u00a0the first debate was so heavily anticipated that the leadup started way before<\/em>\u00a0that week, and therefore had already reached its \u201cpre-debate conversation peak\u201d by the time the week started.
\nOf course, it could also be that with two candidates frequently embroiled in scandal, the media and its audience were focusing on different areas of election news.
\nRegardless, people seemed to be more interested after the debate than before it, as there were more conversations on September 29-30 than on the 23-24.
\nAs this was the first debate, it was too soon to tell if this pattern of conversation is typical for this year\u2019s election cycle.
\nFor example, once people have watched a debate or two, and the media has seen which parts of them the audience reacts to, will we see more targeted conversation prior to debates as anticipation builds?
\nWill future debates prove more controversial and cause people to keep talking about it for longer afterwards?
\nWe\u2019ll look at this later.<\/p>\n

Twitter Only<\/h4>\n

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Once again, maximum reach does happen on the same day as the debate.
\nTwitter is still the go-to source for many for real-time conversation, discussing events airing on television, and discussing breaking news<\/strong>. As a presidential debate aired as primetime television hits all three of those points, there was obviously lots of conversation.
\nThis segment also mirrors the overall volume in terms of its decline. With a fast-paced news cycle and the real-time aspect of social media, people stopped talking about the debate pretty soon afterwards and moved on to something else.<\/p>\n

Web \/ News Only<\/h4>\n

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\nNews and web coverage follows a slightly different path. Because of all the post-event coverage, its conversation peaks the day after the debate and then drastically drops on day 3.
\nGiven the 24-hour news cycle, as well as the nature of campaign coverage, it\u2019s not surprising that outlets quickly move on to a different area or story.<\/p>\n

Reach<\/h3>\n

Mention reach tells us two very important things about the conversational trends around the debates: both quantity and impact.
\nAs more web publications – and ones with larger reach – begin publishing more and more debate coverage, the debate conversation\u2019s reach will increase in that regard. Additionally, as the coverage is shared across social media, it reaches new people – maybe even reaching viral status.
\n 
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\nAs you can see, mention reach peaked on September 27 – the day after the debate. This may be because volume contributes to reach. If the debate hashtag was being used by more people and in more tweets, and it was talked about in more news articles from more publications, reach would be impacted. However, the mentions and conversations would take time to pick up steam.<\/p>\n

Topics<\/h3>\n

Now, what were people actually talking about? We were interested in looking at this to see if people were speaking to logic or emotions, sharing facts or opinion.
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\nAs you can see, it\u2019s a mix of both.
\nIn addition to basic pieces of information about the debates – candidates\u2019 names and Twitter handles, descriptions, and information about the location – there were some more emotional discussions.
\nFor example, the \u201cdeplorable\u201d keyword speaks to people talking about an offensive comment made by Hillary Clinton about Trump supporters. \u201cFact\u201d relates to the live fact checks media organizations do during the debates, speaking to the public\u2019s distrust of both candidates.
\nAnd with \u201cdrinking\u201d and \u201cgame\u201d both trending, a lot of people were obviously about the sardonic coping method that goes viral before each debate.<\/p>\n

Vice Presidential Debate: October 4, 2016<\/h2>\n

I predicted that in terms of conversation patterns, the vice presidential debate would have a few things in common with the first presidential debate, and a few things in common with the last.
\nAfter all, as the only VP event, it was both the first and last time Pence and Kaine shared the debate stage.
\nLet\u2019s take a look at how people actually talked about it online.<\/p>\n

Overall Volume<\/h3>\n

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\nIn terms of overall volume trends, it\u2019s pretty generic and what you would expect.
\nA little bit of conversation before and after the event with a huge bump on debate day. Because this graph looks at both web and social mentions, live reactions and news coverage have the opportunity to balance each other.
\nThere was a bit less conversation leading up to the debate than we expected, but I think we can chalk this up to two things:<\/p>\n