You'd think so, given all the attention Twitter opinionators get in the media. But it turns out that Twitter gets public opinion wrong an awful lot of the time.
Twitter is more liberal than public opinion.
In some instances, the Twitter reaction was more pro-Democratic or liberal than the balance of public opinion. For instance, when a federal court ruled last February that a California law banning same-sex marriage was unconstitutional – a case that is now coming before the Supreme Court – the reaction on Twitter was quite positive. Twitter conversations about the ruling were much more positive than negative (46% vs. 8%). But public opinion, as measured in a national poll, ran the other direction: Of those who had heard about the ruling, just 33% were very happy or pleased with it, while 44% were disappointed or angry.
And this was also evident when it came to the fall presidential campaign. For example, while polls showed that most voters said Mitt Romney gave the better performance in the first presidential debate, Twitter reaction was much more critical of Romney, according to an analysis of social media reaction to the debate. ...Pew Research
Of course, in this case Twitopinion was right in the end. Romney lost, and lost big.
But Twitter is also more conservative than public opinion.
The pro-Democratic or liberal tilt of tweets was not always apparent in the Pew Research Center case studies. The reaction on Twitter to Obama’s second inaugural address and his 2012 State of the Union was not nearly as positive as public opinion.
The contrast was particularly striking in assessments of last year’s State of the Union. The president’s speech was generally well-received by the public: 42% said they had a positive reaction while 27% had a negative reaction. On Twitter, however, the conversation about Obama’s speech was far more negative (40%) than positive (21%).
More recently, Obama’s second inaugural address received more positive than negative assessments in a national survey conducted after the speech. But the conversation about the speech on Twitter tilted more toward criticism than praise. ...Pew Research
And then there are those of us who don't use Twitter at all.
We are conservative, indies, and liberals. We are Buddhists and holy rollers. We belong to every sexual preference group available to humans. We never got out of 6th grade and we have doctorates, fab jobs, and Nobel prizes. We are bound together by respect for each other and no interest in or talent for teensy me-messages.
