Finding the Twitter users who stood with Wendy

Area of Science:

• Social Media Analysis
• Public Health Policy
• Political Communication

Background:

• The Texas omnibus abortion restriction bill and Wendy Davis' 2013 filibuster generated significant public discourse.
• Understanding the geographical distribution of public opinion is crucial for policy-making and public health initiatives.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze Twitter discussions surrounding the Texas abortion restriction bill before, during, and after Wendy Davis' filibuster.
• To characterize the spatial distribution of participants in the United States and estimate the proportion of Texans involved.
• To gauge public sentiment and opposition to abortion restrictions through online social media activity.

Main Methods:

• Collected all tweets associated with the bill's hashtags between June 19th and July 14th, 2013.
• Utilized GPS and text-based location data to classify users by county of residence.
• Mapped daily tweets from the continental U.S. to describe participant demographics and employed indirect estimation to determine Texan participation.

Main Results:

• Approximately 1.66 million tweets were generated by 399,081 user accounts.
• Estimated residency for 160,954 participants (40.3%), with 115,500 (29%) identified as Texans.
• Texans contributed an estimated 48.8% of all tweets, with participation evident from 189 out of 254 Texas counties. Texans tweeted more than non-Texans on most days.

Conclusions:

• The study reveals widespread opposition to abortion restrictions among geographically diverse Twitter users across Texas and the U.S.
• Texans actively voiced their opposition, indicating strong engagement from across the state.
• Analyzing online behavior can offer new methods for identifying individuals' stances on abortion rights.