Social Media Sentiments during 2013-2014 Euromaidan Protests
In a digital world where the effects of revolution can be heard around the globe, it would be remiss not to look at the way that a free and accessible internet makes that possible through various channels. Researchers at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society looked at the attitudes, portrayed via media outlets in Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom, of the late 2013 and early 2014 Ukrainian protests. The content of the posts and media reports was evaluated as being either positive, negative, or neutral in respect to the protesters and their objectives. Some of the highlights of the research include that, of the media analyzed, the research found that the highest percentage of positive posts originated in Russia, though the research also notes that overall the Russian posts were more neutral than had been initially anticipated. Other interesting findings include that the Russian-language posts got increasingly more negative as time went on, while the English-language posts seemed to get more positive as time went on.
Source (where full paper can be downloaded): http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2501761