Twitter

We collected approximately 60 million tweets over a 6-month period during the 2020 presidential election, starting from the conventions through the inauguration. Each tweet referenced either the Republican incumbent Donald Trump or the Democrat challenger Joe Biden. The tweets were analyzed for sentiment and the frequency of the moral foundations using the standard LIWC2015 dictionary and the Moral Foundations Dictionary 2.0. We found that the tweets had an overall negative sentiment for both candidates, with tweets referencing Trump being more negative than tweets about Biden. Additional analyses showed that the Authority (Virtue) and Loyalty (Virtue) were the most frequently used moral foundations. This study provides an overview into social media discussions during a heated election cycle that ultimately culminated in the Jan. 6th Insurrection and the second impeachment of Donald Trump.

In 2016, Colin Kaepernick, the former starting quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, unknowingly bartered his athletic aspirations by exercising his First Amendment Right to freedom of expression. Frustrated with what he and many others perceived as pervasive extrajudicial tactics of law enforcement and a seemingly incessant lack of accountability from the American legal system, Kaepernick silently protested by sitting during the playing of the National Anthem. Although, Kaepernick's actions begun as a singular, almost imperceptible act, he has ultimately redefined the significance of taking a knee, and etched his name in a long list of other malcontents in the struggle for racial equality in America. The purpose of this study is to explore in detail one of the most polarizing components of the Black Lives Matter Movement (BLM) and Black Social Protests in the United States. Analysis of social media content will argue the value of the Kaepernick "Anti Flag/Anthem" Protest, from a communication-cultural perspective.

Social media played a pivotal role during The Never Again MSD Movement. This study examines the communicative tools social media, specifically Twitter, provides its users in order to communicate and distribute information. Authors Evans, Twoney, and Talan describes Twitter as “a valuable tool because it allows for instant communication to a wide audience” (9). Twitter is a valuable tool for communication because it fosters an online space where activists utilize the following communication tools: conversation, community, connection, collaboration, and accessibility. The study describes how activists use those tools in the type of messages being communicated on digital spaces. Through a context analysis on tweets from 3 prominent leaders of the movement: Sarah Chadwick, David Hogg, and Cameron Kasky, common themes were identified. The data was collected from a 6 week period ranging from February 14th, 2018 - March 28th, 2018. The purpose of this study is to ultimately examine how activist communicate on online spaces during social movements. Twitter offers activists a series of communication tools such as community, accessibility, and collaboration. Activists use these tools to first communicate about a variety of different topics relating to the movement as well distribute information and encourage involvement from other users. The results from the analysis determined that there is indeed power in communicating your message in online spaces. The study concludes with these findings: social media, specifically Twitter, is represented as a communication tool. The leaders of the Never Again MSD Movement use those tools in a variety of different ways such as communicating their personal opinion, encouraging involvement as well as promoting collaboration, community, and accessibility.