Ottawa

The world is my dial group: Debate reaction from viewers while it was happening (very cool)

From an ambitious group of social-media programmers in Quebec, this chart logs positive or negative reaction to every instant of tonight’s debate, as reported over the internet while the debate was going on, by viewers. This is, essentially, a massive-sample Frank Luntz-style dial group. (Self-selecting, of course, and perhaps highly so — while now available to anyone with a net connection and any type of hardware, the Quebec group’s interface was originally designed for iPhone owners, who tend to be rich-gala types).

So, with that significant demographic caveat in mind, here’s what the chart shows. Run your cursor over the field marked “parti conservateur” along the bottom. You see that almost every time Stephen Harper opened his mouth, reaction turned sharply negative. And almost every time Stéphane Dion opens his mouth, reaction turns broadly positive. (Duceppe does better than Dion; Layton and May get mixed but, on balance, positive reactions.)

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