Exploring Agenda Setting Through Social Media by Text Mining and Data Analysis: A Case Study of Roe V. Wade Overturn and Discussions on Twitter

Abstract

Traditional theories of agenda setting address that mainstream media (news reports) can influence the public's perceived importance of agenda. However, as the rise of social media, such as Twitter, penetrated people's lives, they became one of the critical tools for receiving and exchanging information. The study examines whether social media, such as Twitter, can influence the public agenda. On June 24, 2022, Roe V. Wade was announced to be officially overturned, along with uproar on the Internet. However, a month ago, on May 2, 2022, a few news agencies reported that the decision was leaked from the Supreme Court, and the discussion on social media was not yet significantly heated. This study attempts to understand the overturn of Roe V. Wade through Twitter, which yields an agenda-setting effect by raising the public's attention. The authors used Twitter's streaming media and RStudio to collect and select a total of 10,000 tweets in two time periods, from May 3, 2022, to May 17, 2022, and June 24, 2022, to July 17, 2022, respectively, with 5,000 tweets in each period for data analysis. The results showed that the total number of retweets from the 5,000 Twitter users during the official version was 23.2 times higher than during the leaked version. In addition, after the release of the official version, people showed significantly higher levels of emotional expression and anger than during the leaked version.