Abstract
Chapter 7 takes into account the role of SNS in the field of public policy. Supervised sentiment analysis is used to monitor the evolution of the attitudes expressed by online public opinion in three different case studies concerning: the Italian labor market reform ‘Jobs Act’ (2014); the ‘€80 tax bonus’ (2014); the school reform ‘#labuonascuola’ (2015). The comparison between these studies suggests that policy-makers respond to the opinions of the ‘activated public opinion’ of SNS only when they perceive that ignoring these stakes may produce serious offline consequences (e.g., in terms of electoral support).
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Notes
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The 51 data points are weekly analyses made between March 2014 and June 2015. I decided not to consider other weeks, in which the reform was not at the top of the policy agenda and was not widely discussed online (i.e., from mid-July until mid-September 2014 and between May and June 2014).
- 5.
The coding stage was done by two trained coders. 800 tweets were hand-coded. Intercoder reliability (percent agreement) is 0.93 for the rating of the overall sentiment, and 0.80 with respect to the motives. The same training set has been used across the whole period. Compared to hand-coded documents in the training set, the root mean square error of the estimates is 1.6%.
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- 7.
Accordingly, the share of comments stating that the “Jobs Act” “damages workers rights” is negatively related (r = -0.85) with those arguing that it “grants rights” to those who have not.
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Article 18 of the Workers’ Statute, dating from 1970, requires employers to reinstate, not just to compensate, workers whose dismissal is ruled unjust by the courts.
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Two different training sets have been used in the two analyses. Both have been coded by two trained coders. For each analysis, 800 tweets have been hand-coded. Intercoder reliability (percent agreement) is 0.84 for the first round and 0.89 for the second one. Compared to hand-coded documents in the training set, the root mean square error of the estimates is around 2% in both analyses.
- 11.
The gender of the users who commented on social media has been assessed by looking at the information available in their profile. Such information might not be completely reliable given that only one-third of users declared his/her gender and anyone can cheat online. Nevertheless, the results are very similar when assessing the gender by looking at the masculinity or femininity of words such as verbs (e.g., the use of past participle) and nouns (e.g., male worker/female worker) written in the comments.
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See Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research: http://www.istruzione.it/allegati/2014/focus151214_all1.pdf
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- 14.
The analysis was done by two trained coders. Intercoder reliability is 0.79. This confirms the accuracy of the results. Note that in the hand-coding stage ironic comments were successfully recognized and isolated: for instance, statements such as “After today’s stock exchange crisis, with the #80euro I can buy a drum of oil!!!” (@Jona_Crane, 15 October 2014, author’s translation), have been categorized as non-classifiable. Compared to hand-coded documents in the training set, the root mean square error of the estimates is 2.7%.
- 15.
See: Paola Iadeluca, La Repubblica, 14 September 2014, pp. 22–23: “Bonus 80 euro, il 53% lo spende. Bollette, mutui e acquisti obbligati ma anche pizza, viaggi e telefonini.”
- 16.
A similar view has been portrayed in a study made by the trade union CISL, which showed that the bonus has been balanced out by tax rises (http://www.ansa.it/sito/notizie/economia/2014/11/17/fisco-cisl-piu-pressione-sulle-famiglie-annulla-il-bonus_40b1b4e0-5b7e-4513-a286-9ff251a66f88.html).
- 17.
An enquiry performed by Confcommercio in October confirmed that consumers used the bonus either to pay household bills or for grocery shopping (http://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/notizie/2014-10-16/confcommercio-consumi-ancora-fermi-e-fiducia-calo-161440.shtml?uuid=ABeymr3B). Note, however, that the drop in the categories related to extra goods and garments can be related to the end of the summer holidays and to the summer sales too.
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Ceron, A. (2017). Social Media, Collective Action and Public Policy. In: Social Media and Political Accountability. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52627-0_7
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