The Boycott of The Sun in Merseyside 'has led to lower levels of Euroscepticism'

"The report, authored by London School of Economics behavioural political scientist Florian Foos and Zurich University’s Daniel Bischof, says the long-standing Sun boycott lowered Euroscepticism among the “unskilled” working class who “made up a large share of Sun readers before the disaster”.
The report said “attitudes towards the EU got significantly more positive in Merseyside during the boycott”.
Liverpool, The Wirral and Sefton in Merseyside all voted Remain.
The study, which used data from the annual British Social Attitudes survey and is available online, added: “…the boycott of the most important Eurosceptic newspaper – The Sun in Merseyside as a consequence of The Sun’s reporting on the Hillsborough sporting disaster – led to a decrease of Euroscepticism in Merseyside, which we estimate to amount to around 11 percentage points.
“Moreover, our results suggest that The Sun boycott in Merseyside might have decreased the Leave vote share in Merseyside in the 2016 EU referendum.”
The authors said the study showed “sustained media campaigns on emerging issues can have large, lasting, and ultimately, consequential effects on public opinion, and public policy”."
Source:  Press Gazette, 27th August 2019

Fake news spreads more quickly than genuine news

"We investigated the differential diffusion of all of the verified true and false news stories distributed on Twitter from 2006 to 2017. The data comprise ~126,000 stories tweeted by ~3 million people more than 4.5 million times. We classified news as true or false using information from six independent fact-checking organizations that exhibited 95 to 98% agreement on the classifications. Falsehood diffused significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth in all categories of information, and the effects were more pronounced for false political news than for false news about terrorism, natural disasters, science, urban legends, or financial information. We found that false news was more novel than true news, which suggests that people were more likely to share novel information. Whereas false stories inspired fear, disgust, and surprise in replies, true stories inspired anticipation, sadness, joy, and trust. Contrary to conventional wisdom, robots accelerated the spread of true and false news at the same rate, implying that false news spreads more than the truth because humans, not robots, are more likely to spread it."
Source:  Abstract of The spread of true and false news online by Soroush Vosoughi1, Deb Roy, Sinan Aral, reported in Science, 9th March 2018

17% of Daily Mail readers who voted in the June 2017 General Election voted for Labour

Source:  YouGov, 13th June 2017

The first Clinton-Trump Debate was seen by a record 84m TV viewers in the US

"The first televised skirmish between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump broke the all-time TV audience record for a presidential debate, averaging 84 million viewers across a dozen ad-supported broadcast and cable networks and PBS.
Monday night's showdown between the former Secretary of State, U.S. Senator and First Lady and her opponent, the real estate mogul, steak wrangler and reality TV star, surpassed the 80.6 million viewers who tuned in for the lone debate between President Jimmy Carter and former California Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1980. That event aired on the three extant broadcast networks: ABC, CBS and NBC.
The total Nielsen turnout does not include viewers who streamed the debate online or watched from a bar, restaurant, hotel or other out-of-home venue. Also not included in the final debate tally was C-Span, which is not officially measured by Nielsen.
NBC boasted the largest debate audience, drawing 18.2 million viewers, or 22% of the overall viewership for the 99-minute event. ABC scared up the second-largest crowd, averaging 13.5 million viewers, while CBS took third with 12.1 million. Fox News Channel claimed the biggest debate crowd among the cable news outlets, drawing 11.4 million viewers, while its rival CNN averaged 9.94 million. MSNBC finished near the back of the pack with an average delivery of 4.91 million viewers.
NBC also won the night among the core news demographic, averaging 8.3 million adults 25 to 54 to CBS's 4.8 million and ABC's 4.75 million. CNN's coverage drew 4.51 million members of the demo, topping the much older-skewing Fox News Channel's 3.55 million and eclipsing MSNBC's average delivery of 1.59 million demographically apposite viewers.
As has been the case with every presidential debate since the first televised joust (Nixon-Kennedy, Sept. 26, 1960), Monday night's proceedings were uninterrupted by commercial messages. Pre- and post-debate ads on the Big Three broadcast networks went for as much as $250,000 per 30-second spot."
Source:  AdAge, 27th September 2016

The State of the Union 2015

Not 'media' stats as such, but this is a very impressive and well structured document

The 2015 Enhanced State of the Union from White House

Facebook's 'I'm a Voter' feature encouraged 340,000 extra people to vote in the US in 2010

"Facebook is rolling out its "I'm a voter" feature worldwide, after the app's success in the Indian elections in early May.
More than four million Indian voters clicked the button, registering that they had voted during the country's parliamentary elections, according to Reuters. Thanks to that success, the company is rolling the feature out for a number of upcoming elections.
Facebook users in the EU, Colombia, South Korea, Indonesia, New Zealand and Brazil will all have the option to broadcast their status as voters. Scottish voters will have the chance to click the button twice, in both the European parliament elections and the referendum for Scottish independence.
The feature was first introduced for the 2010 US mid-term elections, and by 2012, more than nine million voters had clicked it to report that they had taken part in the US presidential election.
Now that the feature is active worldwide, Facebook estimates that a third of its active users will see the message in their news feeds at some point this year – more than 400 million people.
And it's about more than just over-sharing. In 2010, the feature was credited with encouraging 340,000 people to vote who would otherwise have stayed at home."

Source:  The Guardian, 20th May 2014

Sales of George Orwell's 1984 rose 6,000% following the Edward Snowden revelations

"Sales of George Orwell's 1984 have shot up following revelations that the United States' National Security Agency (NSA) is accessing data on people around the world.
Sales of Orwell's novel have risen by 6,000% since the Guardian revealed the allegations of former NSA sub-contractor Edward Snowden.
In the dystopian novel, all citizens are constantly spied on by an inner elite party in the government.
Banners reading "Big Brother Is Watching You" cover the city and citizens are monitored by the Thought Police, who punish people for independent thinking.
After Snowden leaked the top secret files relating to the Washington's highly confidential Prism programme, questions have been raised about the ethical implications of the surveillance."

Source:  International Business Times, 11th June 2013

Note - Clearly if we don't know what they rose from and to, and over what time period, (how many copies would it sell normally), which countries this covers, and what other activity was happening (new editions, promotions) it's a bit of a suspect stat.  #CaveatEmptor

At least 2 million Tweets about the Turkish protests were posted on 31st May 2013

"The social media response to and the role of social media in the protests has been phenomenal. Since 4pm local time yesterday, at least 2 million tweets mentioning hashtags related to the protest, such as #direngezipark? (950,000 tweets), #occupygezi (170,000 tweets) or #geziparki (50,000 tweets) have been sent. As we show in the plot below, the activity on Twitter was constant throughout the day (Friday, May 31). Even after midnight local time last night more than 3,000 tweets about the protest were published every minute."
Source:  AlJazeera, 1st June 2013

There were 1.4 million tweets mentioning Sir Alex Ferguson within an hour of his retirement

"If you want an idea of the reverence with which Sir Alex Ferguson is held, Twitter has an easy guideline: more than Margaret Thatcher, but less – so far – than the new Pope.
That's the conclusion that emerges from the number of tweets surrounding the three events – the death of Lady Thatcher, the announcement of the new pope, and this morning's announcement by Manchester United's press office Twitter account (at the newsdesk-friendly hour of 9.17am).
According to data collected by Twitter, the hour after Thatcher's death saw a million tweets in the following four hours.
Sir Alex broke that easily, as the much-expected news of his retirement from the manager's job had more than 1.4m mentions on Twitter within the first hour, and the original story was retweeted and "favourited" more than 18,000 times, according to official Twitter figures.
But the announcement of the choice of Jorge Mario Bergoglio to be the new pope on 13 March garnered substantially more mentions, 7m, demonstrating that while football may be a religion for many, it still has a little way to catch up with the officially recognised ones, at least on social media."

Source:  The Guardian, 8th May 2013

Hugo Chavez had a staff of 200 to help run his Twitter account

"It is known mainly for transmitting celebrity trivia and narcissism, but in the hands of Hugo Chávez Twitter has become something else: a tool of government.
Venezuela's president has harnessed the social networking and microblogging service for his socialist revolution by encouraging the population to tweet him its concerns.
Chávez's Twitter account, @chavezcandanga, has exceeded 720,000 followers after gaining a reputation as a way to bypass bureaucracy and appeal directly to the president. It gains about 2,000 followers daily.
The leftist leader ordered the establishment of a 200-strong team to process and respond to the avalanche of messages complaining about government services and requesting help.
"This telephone is close to melting. Now I am aware of many things going on here," said Chávez, brandishing his BlackBerry, during a recent televised meeting with police officials.
Sometimes Twitter bites back. Earlier this week Colombia's former president Alvaro Uribe, a regular Chávez target, tweeted from @AlvaroUribeVel: "I ask President Hugo Chávez to stop being a coward hurling insults remotely."
Since signing on to the service in April, Venezuela's leader has routinely ordered ministers to attend to specific tweets. Told of an apparent mugging and kidnapping, he tweeted: "I'm telling [interior] minister Tarek [El Aissami] to investigate!! Good luck friend."
Chávez said some pleas for medical help haunted him. "These things stay with you. Sometimes I can't sleep because I think 'Oh my God!' and I start to reply and I call the ministers: 'Help me here. Locate this person.'"
The president said he has received more than 287,921 pleas for help, including 19,000 for a job, 17,000 for a house, 12,000 for credit and 7,000 for legal aid."
Source:  The Guardian, 10th August 2010
Note - Hugo Chavez Frias had 4.1m followers when he died, so it's likely the staff numbers had to grow

The US election set a new mobile traffic record for BBC News Online

"BBC coverage of the US election, which my colleague Jon Williams trailed here a couple of days ago, brought the highest traffic to BBC News Online so far this year, and set a new record for us on mobile.
On 7 November, there were 16.4m unique browsers across the website and mobile, 8.1m of which came from the UK. That makes it the highest traffic day of 2012 so far and rivals our two biggest previous days during the August riots and the March Tsunami, in 2011. During the England riots, on 9 August 2011 there were there were 18.2m unique browsers, 10.9m of which came from the UK.
The peak traffic point yesterday was 07:00-08:00 GMT, which saw higher usage than lunchtime, maybe as people checked the results as soon as they woke up. UK usage figures yesterday were 50% higher than the average for 2012, and ex-UK usage was 75% higher than average.
We spent a lot of time working out how to provide the best possible service on mobile, so it's encouraging to see that nearly 5m mobile devices visited BBC News Online yesterday, a record figure for us on mobile, accounting for about 30% of all users yesterday (on an average weekday, we'd expect mobiles to account for about 24% of users)."

Source:  BBC News Blog, 8th November 2012

Election night on Instagram

Click to enlarge

Source:  Instagram blog, 7th November 2012

Barack Obama's 2012 Election celebration picture is the most Liked picture ever on Facebook

"Shortly after President Obama won re-election last night, a simple photo of the president embracing his wife was posted on his Facebook page. Just a few hours later, and with apologies to Gangnam Style, Justin Bieber, and adorable kittens worldwide, that shot became the most "liked" photo ever on Facebook.
At the moment, it's been liked over 3.1 million times, and the number is still climbing.
The same photo was also posted to the president's Twitter account last night, and quickly smashed Twitter records for the most retweets. At the moment it's been retweeted more than 638,000 times. The next most popular tweet from Justin Bieber has under 225,000.
Over on the GOP side of Facebook, where Mitt Romney's page has about a third the "likes" of Obama's, a few simple posts with a shot of the candidate and the words "Thank You" have garnered just under a million digital thumbs-up so far. Understandably, Republican voters seem to have been in less of a liking mood last night."

Source:  Cnet, 7th November 2012

The 2012 US Election Night on Twitter

"One hundred million votes and 31 million Tweets later, Election Day 2012 has come to a close. As the results of the election were called by news organizations, the conversation on Twitter surged, hitting a peak of 327,452 Tweets per minute (TPM). Before President Obama took the stage to address the nation, he shared a special update on Twitter. As thousands of supporters cheered in Chicago, more than 455,000 (and counting) retweeted his celebratory message:

Four more years. twitter.com/BarackObama/st…
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) November 7, 2012

While the announcement of results was the biggest moment of the election cycle, there were many other notable Twitter moments tonight:
-327,452 TPM - 11:19pm ET - Networks call Obama's reelection
-85,273 TPM -11:12pm ET - IA presidential race called
-69,031 TPM - 9:33pm ET - PA and WI presidential races called
-65,106 TPM - 8:03pm ET - Polls close in various states; AP calls races for IL, CT, ME, DC, DE, RI, MD, MA"
Source:  Twitter blog, 6th November 2012
Also - 3.1m Likes and 360,000 shares on Facebook

There were 10.3 million Tweets discussing the first Presidential debate in October 2012

Click to enlarge

Source:  The Atlantic Wire, 4th October 2012
Related - The numbers for the first UK debate in April 2010

7 of the 10 most followed people on Twitter are women

"# Name (Screen Name) Followers
1. Lady Gaga (ladygaga) 15,117,972
2. Justin Bieber (justinbieber) 13,868,314
3. Katy Perry (katyperry) 11,511,972
4. Barack Obama (BarackObama) 10,872,247
5. Kim Kardashian (KimKardashian) 10,735,244
6. Britney Spears (britneyspears) 10,662,045
7. Shakira (shakira) 9,802,132
8. Rihanna (rihanna) 9,055,660
9. taylorswift13 (taylorswift13) 8,759,295
10. ashton kutcher (aplusk) 8,028,802"
Source:  Retrieved from Twitaholic, 31st October 2011

50% of tweets with links are generated by just 20,000 twitter users

"We study several longstanding questions in media communications research, in the context of the microblogging service Twitter, regarding the production, flow, and consumption of information. To do so, we exploit a recently introduced feature of Twitter---known as Twitter lists---to distinguish between elite users, by which we mean specifically celebrities, bloggers, and representatives of media outlets and other formal organizations, and ordinary users. Based on this classification, we find a striking concentration of attention on Twitter---roughly 50% of tweets consumed are generated by just 20K elite users---where the media produces the most information, but celebrities are the most followed."
Source:  Shaomei Wu, Cornell University, Jake M. Hofman, Yahoo! Research, Winter A. Mason, Yahoo! Research, Duncan J. Watts, Yahoo! Research, 'Twitter Flow' 28th March 2011
(Includes a link to download the full research report)
Note 1 - Why just just looked at tweets with links (& in fact just tweets with B.t.ly Urls:
From the full pdf:
"In addition to the follower graph, we are interested in the content being shared on Twitter|particularly URLs|and so we examined the corpus of all 5B tweets generated over a 223 day period from July 28, 2009 to March 8, 2010 using data from the Twitter \ rehose," the complete stream of all tweets2. Because our objective is to understand the flow of information, it is useful for us to restrict attention to tweets containing URLs, for two reasons. First, URLs add easily identi able tags to individual tweets, allowing us to observe when a particular piece of content is either retweeted or subsequently reintroduced by another user. And second, because URLs point to online content outside of Twitter, they provide a much richer source of variation than is possible in the typical 140 character tweet. Finally, we note that almost all URLs broadcast on Twitter have been shortened using one of a number of URL shorteners, of which the most popular is http://bit.ly/. From the total of 5B tweets recorded during our observation period, therefore, we focus our attention on the subset of 260M containing bit.ly URLs."

Note 2 - According to the authors of the report, in an email to me in response to my queries, 'attention' is actually defined as being potentially exposed to tweets.  So if I follow @aplusk I am paying attention to his tweets.  It's a bit of a shame that they've used this very low measure of involvement, rather than to look at clicks, re-tweets or replies, in my opinion
So in fact the title should say "50% of the potential impressions generated by tweets with links are generated by just 20,000 users"

US House and Senate election winners generally had more fans than the losers

"With most of Election Night’s races already decided, the Facebook political team took a look at whether Facebook “likes” did help predict the 2010 House and Senate winners.
The Data
 More Fans Equals 74% Winning Percentage in Key House Races
Facebook tracked 98 of the most hotly contested House races, as decided by leading political observers, and 74 percent of the candidates with the most Facebook fans won their races:
· 69 candidates with the most Facebook fans won· 24 candidates with the most Facebook fans lost
· 5 races are still too close to call
More Than 80% of Senate Wins Foreshadowed on Facebook
Just over 82 percent of the 34 Senate races that have been decided were won by the candidate with more Facebook fans:
· 28 candidates with the most Facebook fans won
· 6 candidates with the most Facebook fans lost
· 3 races are still too close to call
House Democrat Incumbents Lost on Facebook Before Losing on Election Day
So far, 46 House Democrat incumbents lost their seats yesterday. More than 78% of those incumbents had fewer Facebook fans than their challengers:
· 36 incumbent House Democrats who lost their seat had fewer fans then their Republican challenger
· 10 incumbent House Democrats who lost their seat had more fans than their Republican challenger"
Source:  Facebook, 3rd November 2011

There were 29 tweets per second discussing the first UK election leadership debate

"Final stats: total tweets: 184,396; average frequency 29.06 tweets per second; total tweeters: 36,483"
Source: Tweet from Tweetminster, 15th April 2010