Pew study shows Twitter messaging more negative than other political media

By Sarah Schweitzer, Globe Staff

Turns out, 140-characters pack a punch in politics.

An examination of more than 20 million tweets about the 2012 race showed that discussion on Twitter is more negative than in news accounts and blogs, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

On Twitter, too, a view of a candidate changes dramatically, at times, shifting from positive to negative, or the other way around, from week to week, as events unfold.

Only one Republican presidential contender has fared well on Twitter. From May through November, when the study was conducted, 55 percent of tweets about Ron Paul were positive while just 15 percent were negative, the highest and lowest percentages, respectively, of any candidate, according to the study.

By contrast, tweets about Mitt Romney were more negative than positive: 19 percent positive, 40 percent negative and 41 percent neutral. Many of the Twitter critiques of Romney drew upon the theme that he is too moderate, with the word RINO (Republican in name only) often used to critique him, the study noted.

For Romney, Herman Cain (who has suspended his campaign), and Rick Perry, the Twitter universe has been harshest in the last eight weeks.

Newt Gingrich, by contrast, had his first week of more positive than negative tweets starting Oct. 24.

President Obama has not been spared either. There were more tweets about him than all the Republican contenders combined – 15 million - and negative tweets outweighed positive ones by 3 to 1, with 17 percent positive, 51 percent negative and 33 percent neutral.

The study examined campaign coverage and the online discussion from May 2 – Nov. 27. The Twitter sample was derived from “the Twitter Firehose data feed,” which includes all public tweets from the Twitter system, some 140 million posted every day.