September 18, 2015

PBO vs. BHO: The Twitter Differences Between Democrats and Republicans

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


James Pethokoukis points me to a paper in PLOS ONE about different word usage on Twitter among Democrats and Republicans. Some of it was unsurprising. Democrats curse more, use more internet slang, and are more touchy-feely. Republicans are more religious and like to emphasize group identities.

The authors also report on the results of an algorithm (too complicated for me to understand) that ranks the top words among Democrats and Republicans. Some of them are just products of the time the tweets were collected (June 2014). The Kenya references among Democrats, for example, were related to the Kenya hotel bombing on June 16. We also learn that Republicans refer to President Obama as bho while Democrats prefer pbo.

But here’s an interesting tidbit. Compared to Democrats, Republicans appear to tweet much more about specific political figures, and to tweet about things they’re mad at. Five names make their top 20, and (by my count) 16 things they’re outraged about. Among Democrats, one political name makes the top 20 and two things they’re outraged about. I can’t really account for either of these results. There are plenty of Republicans that Democrats don’t like, and plenty of things they’re outraged about. But apparently Dems don’t tweet about them much.

One caveat: despite being a registered Democrat myself, there are a whole bunch of top Democrat words that I can’t make sense of.  What is qampa? Is journey the band, or do Democrats just like to talk about travel? What about maya and nene? Are those the poet and the singer? Or the Mesoamerican civilization and the bird? And what’s up with arsenal? Is this the football club or the place where weapons are stored?

Conversely, the top Republican words are all too easy to understand. I’m not quite sure about loi, but that’s it.

To summarize: Republicans are pissed, and Democrats are young enough to use lots of words I don’t get. Sigh.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate