Sentiment Analysis: Why is it important?

Analytics and Insights, Brussels, Data Science, European Parliament, European Union, Insights 2 Minutes

WHY IS ONLINE MEDIA IMPORTANT TO LOOK AT?

I examine this question with the help of Charts and the EU. Thank you..Click on the Charts to make them bigger.

So why is looking at on-line media important? The chart above (Lau, 2001) shows online media has expanded in the last 16 years. Online news has displaced print and broadcast to represent 46 percent of all content monitored globally. Increasingly online communications/media is becoming the main source of people’s knowledge for political affairs. In the era of the mediatization in politics and democratic theory, which assumes that an informed and attentive public is necessary for democracy to work effectively (Lau, 2001), understanding on-line communications is vital.

The Analysis of on-line media is a cross between what’s called data science[1] and “Culturomics” (Leetaru, September 2011). The goal is to find cultural trends through computerized analysis of online media to develop insights in the functioning of human society, thoughts and actions (Michel, et al., 2011). This process has been very accurate in forecasting instances such as box office sales (Mishne and Glance, 2006) to the stock market (Bollen, et al., 2011). To illustrate the power of data science and sentiment analysis in a political context scientist – using a super computer, applied tone and geographic analysis to a 30 year worldwide news archive. The scientist were able to forecast the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, the removal of Egyptian President Mubarak, the stability of Saudi Arabia, and estimated Osama Bin Laden’s hiding place within a 200–kilometer radius, in Northern Pakistan.

The point of all of this?

Media is a very accurate source for insights into the human condition, as well as our thought process. Now with the rapid expansion of online media, there is a wealth of untapped knowledge and syntax to further analyse.

EXAMPLE:
The chart above shows the volume of searches based on the terms “European Parliament”, “European Commission” and “European Union”. They were also translated into French, German and Italian for further accuracy. The data was gathered with Google Insights[1] for Search. The chart does not track positive or negative sentiment, just the volume of the terms searched through Google[2]. The data clearly shows the interest in the EU has gone down since 2004. For both the European Parliament and Commission the top locations for the searches of the term were Ixelles, Luxembourg and Brussels – all home to the institutions themselves. This illustrates the “Brussels Bubble” that so many talk about
The Google insights data mirrors voting rates. In other words, voting rates (above) and participation have gone down.
The variables:
  • Lack of a unified media, hesitation on real-time engagement, failure to leverage modern instruments and an incentive to do so.
  • MEP and political parties do not have to raise money for re-election, and there is little incentive to actively engage constituents, on an individual MEP level as well since the parties puts forth the Politicians.
This frame work has lead to autonomy and citizens that look more toward national politics for answers. With the current financial “Euro” crisis it would be easy to assume that the interest in the EU – whether good or bad, would go up. This has not happened.

[1] With Google Insights for Search, you can compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, time frames and properties. See examples of how you can use Google Insights for Search.

[2] Google’s search market share in Europe is around 90%. In the U.S. it’s around 65%.

[1] The profession of interpreting and creating value from Data.

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Published by Chandler T Wilson

Do to fundamental market shifts; organizations now find themselves operating within increased volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA). As a result, there are fewer markets with unknown opportunities and places to hide during market turbulence. Business, both big and small, will need to shift their thinking on what work, strategy, and creativity are. The majority of processes deployed at organizations are superficial and lead to a marginal compared, if any, competitive advantage, or built on assumptions that are no longer relevant or accurate. At Walmart, I work on machine intelligence to optimize corporate strategy and business processes for the VUCA age. By analyzing market trends and strategic frameworks with machine intelligence and algorithms, I've come to the conclusion that competitive advantage lay in the embrace of complexity, faster information to action times, and the unorthodox, as well as being agnostic to how an entity makes money or reacts to markets - especially for asset-rich businesses. This site is meant to house some of my research and thinking in the above areas. The views and comments expressed here are my own and do not represent companies I have worked for or with.

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