Taylor's Method 3: Content Analysis

When conducting Method 3, I focused on journalist OR report OR reporter OR media, from August 7, 2014 until January 1, 2015. I chose this filter in order to produce my sample because I was interested in seeing how journalists, reporters, and activists were using Twitter during the first few months of Ferguson. My codes were "quoting someone else" and "provides location." I chose these codes because I was interested in seeing why journalists, reporters, and activists were tweeting about locations, and what they were saying about other people's statements or tweets. About one third of the tweets I tagged were tweets quoting someone else, two thirds of the tweets I tagged provided a location, and there were no tweets available that both quoted someone else while also providing a location. I am confident in the use of my codes because it was easy to tell whether or not someone was quoting someone, and it was obvious whether or not the tweeter provided a location in their tweet.

One of the patterns that emerged from my “provides location” tag was that tweeters were providing the locations of protests and riots. Two of the most common places where these events were held were in local Walmarts and Targets. Most commonly, they would say something along the lines of “Protesters are heading to Walmart at this location,” or “Protesters having gathered at this Target.” Another pattern that emerged from this tag was that tweeters would be providing the locations of where the police were stationed. Some of these tweets would give the location of where the police were throwing gas at people, where police were bringing dogs, or where Humvees were located.

One of the patters that emerged from my “quoting other people tweet” was that a majority of those who were quoting other people were quoting the reports or statements from other journalists or reporters. Another pattern was that they would be quoting either Darren Wilson of Mike Brown. Some were tweeting quotes by Wilson calling Brown a “monster,” or quoting how Mike Brown stated “Hands Up Don’t Shoot.”

These patterns tell me that there were many journalists, activists, and reporters at the time were tweeting about locations of where protestors were meeting, where they intend on meeting, and that they were usually quoting people similar to them, or quoting those involved in the actual shooting. Going into it, I definitely thought I would find more tweets that were quoting other people because I thought reporters and journalists would commonly quote each other. However, quoting was not as common as I thought it would be. For locations, I did think the tweets would most commonly be discussing places of protests and riots.