PA partners with Twitter to track the EU referendum debate
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Version 0 of 1. The Press Association has gone into partnership with Twitter to highlight the course of the EU referendum online debate. The organisations have created a free-to-use tool, called #EURef Data Hub, which allows everyone, not just journalists, to track voters’ opinions during the campaign. It measures and displays the levels of Twitter conversations, breaking down the views of both the Leave and Remain camps, plus reactions to the political figures as they argue their cases. A PA press release says that the news agency’s editorial team will put the real-time data from Twitter into context, helping “to shape the way the information is presented to users.” Graphs, and other visual representations on the dashboard, will track key questions, such as: which campaign, Leave or Remain, is the most talked about? Who are the most talked-about campaigners? Which topics are driving the most conversation? And how do people feel about them? PA’s social media editor, Steve Jones, says: “The online debate around the EU referendum campaign is an incredibly important component of the media’s coverage. “This dashboard will be a really useful tool for journalists and the public to keep abreast of what’s being talked about, and how that discussion has changed over time.” And Rob Owers, partnerships manager for news and government at Twitter, believes his company’s social media site is “uniquely placed” to register the live reaction to “one of the most hotly debated campaigns of recent times.” We can “see the live reaction and analysis as our users comment on, and question, these big announcements in real time,” he says. “Working with PA on this project we’re able to add even more context to the shifts and peaks in conversation, reflecting which topics and personalities are having the greatest impact.” The dashboard can be found at referendum.pressassociation.com and will be available until Britain makes its big decision on 23 June. Journalists who want to use the data for stories can embed the dashboard on their own sites, or reproduce data with the appropriate “Twitter/PA” credit. |