Popularity of Politicians based on Ratio-ing?
In a recent blog post by Pulsar, a social listening firm, I learned a new listening trick called, ratio-ing. This looks at the number of likes on a post and the number of comments. When comments exceed likes, according to Pulsar, that means that people are angry. I was intrigued by this idea and decided to play.
To do so, I picked three politicians — Lisa Murkowski, moderate, Ilhan Omar, leaning far left, and Matt Gaetz, leaning far right. I picked a topic, vaccines, and went to see how people reacted to posts on this topic by these three. For each post, I noted how many likes, and where viable, how many other reactions (love, comfort, haha, anger), and how many comments. For a sample of the comments, I noted whether they were on topic, or what else people wanted to mention. I did this only for the top comments and not comments on comments.
Findings:
Lisa Murkowski posted about vaccines on April 13, noting that the health system for Alaskan natives was doing a good job delivering vaccines to rural parts of the state. 317 people liked or loved the post and it received 86 comments for a 1:3.7 posts/likes ratio. I looked at 56 comments. Around one third (18) were on topic, 43% (24) suggested that Senator Murkowski should resign, and slightly more than 10% suggested that the pandemic is a scam.
Ilhan Omar posted that vaccines are the ticket back to normal on May 8. 16 people found this funny (clicked on the laughing face) and 291 liked the post. It received 42 comments for a 1:6.9 comments/likes ratio. I looked at 17 comments. Almost 2/3 (10) were on topic. 17% (3) suggested that Congresswoman Omar should go leave office, with two of those suggesting she go back to Somalia. Two others stated that she is a “fraud”.
Matt Gaetz did not post about vaccines, but he did have a post praising Florida’s handling of the pandemic on May 7. 2,700 liked or loved the post and it received 466 comments for a 1:5.8 comments/likes ratio. I looked at 51 comments. As previously mentioned, the issue of his scandal was discussed. I found it difficult to judge if a comment was on topic, as he had asked for campaign donations in his post. Approximately one third of comments (18) appeared to be on topic, but only five of those were positive (agreeing that Florida had done well in the pandemic). 57% (29) focused on Matt Gaetz and whether to give him money, and only one of those was postive. Another 8% (4) were only tangentially related (anti-Fox news, about WinRed, about the events of January 6, and one I couldn’t understand). Note: Matt Gaetz is under investigation and many of the negative comments focused on that.
Discussion:
The post/likes ratio is intriguing, and I want to use it more, but it does not give much information in this first test. Ilhan Omar has the highest ratio (1:7) and the lowest disapproving comments (29%, 5/17). Matt Gaetz’s ratio is similar to hers, but his disapproving comments are the highest (55%, 28/54). Murkowski has the lowest ratio (1:4), and disapproving comments are definitely present (43%, 24/56). I don’t know, however, if anyone is monitoring the facebook comments. One can imagine that some offensive comments might be removed by staff or volunteers.
Senator Murkowski has only 59,356 likes for her whole page. Congressman Gaetz has 152,609, and Congresswoman Omar has 299,910. When I try this experiment again, I will try to use politicians that have similar numbers of followers. I tried to find posts from the same time period, but Senator Murkowski’s was much older.
Obviously, Facebook comments on politicians’ pages are biased by people who feel strongly enough to find the politician’s page and then comment. I’ll be curious to see how they reflect or predict voting patterns. Of course, anyone can comment on them, including people who are not from their district.
Final thought:
I’m curious how much attention anyone is paying to what gets said on these pages. My quick read of these comments does suggest that people voice support/non-support for the politician in the comments and why, which might be useful. The comments/likes ratio could be quick way to quantify current feeling toward the politician, but I need to test it more to see. None of these posts came close to more comments than likes. I’m curious to see if I can find more comments than likes, and I think I need someone even more controversial than one of these three, perhaps Liz Cheney?
