Tool for journalists: The #EURef Data Hub to track Brexit debate on Twitter

Credit: Image from Pixabay.com

What is it? The Press Association (PA) teamed up with Twitter and social analytics company Blurrt to create a dashboard chronicling the discussion around the EU referendum on Twitter. The #EURef Data Hub was made publicly available on 31 May.

How is it of use to journalists? Brexit has dominated headlines since the date of the referendum on whether the UK should leave or remain in the EU was announced.

And as 23 June is fast approaching, the volume of stories about the possibility of Brexit and the demand for them will naturally increase. The #EURef Data Hub is a free dashboard that graphs discussions about Brexit on Twitter, shedding some light over Twitter users' take on the campaign.

Some of the questions it aims to answer are:

• Which campaign is most talked about?

• How has conversation about the EU referendum changed over time?

• David Cameron vs Boris Johnson: Who’s the most talked about?

Data answering these three questions can be broken down to explore over a 24 hour period, a week, or since the records began (19 April).

Hover over the lines to get data for specific days, such as following a debate or a TV appearance by campaigners.

Screenshot from #EURef Data Hub, 1 June

Other topics addressed by the dashboard deal with identifying the most talked about campaigners, the percentage of people tweeting about each campaign, the topics that are driving the discussion and the emotions expressed about these topics.

By clicking the small 'i' symbol next to the title of each graphic, reporters can get more information about how the graph was created.

Journalists who want to use the data for reference in their own stories or visualisations need to credit "Twitter/PA".

"The online debate around the EU referendum campaign is an incredibly important component of the media's coverage, and this dashboard will be a really useful tool for journalists and the public to keep abreast of what's being talked about, and how that discussion has changed over time," Steve Jones, social media editor at the Press Association, said in a press release.

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