05-19-2013, 03:00 AM
Chakravartin wrote:
[quote=davester]
WRONG! Before jumping to conclusions, perhaps you should have clicked the link and looked at the methodology.
Re-read it.
Not one word about normalizing for INTERNET ACCESS.
All that they are saying is that counties with small populations of "hate-tweeters" are left off the map. So, the dark spaces correspond to a paucity of tweets. And that makes perfect sense since there's also a paucity of Internet access in those same places.
'Can't tweet when you can't get online.
Monica Stephens has been doing this with at least one class every year for the last several years. Every time she makes one of these population maps and claims to have discovered some deeper meaning, she and her school get lots of free publicity. But regardless of what her class is studying, every year the map looks almost exactly the same.
...Which may be the subtle point of it.
It's obvious that the dark spaces mean there are insufficient tweets. That doesn't really matter unless the reader is ascribing some meaning to them. I can see how this might be an issue for folks who don't understand what they are looking at, and perhaps it would have been better to map things differently so that the percentage of rural area was somehow accounted for (e.g. warp the map area to account for population, or apply the findings of western population centers to surrounding regions based on a population function).
Also, I don't think it is true that counties with small populations of "hate tweeters" are left off the map. I think what they are showing is that counties with small populations of tweeters in general are left off the map...a very large difference
That said, the map is very useful as is for people who understand what it represents, and the major population centers of the west have plenty of data and show significant contrasts with the population centers of the east. That is the point. Now, if you can demonstrate some systematic error that could account for that, then you would be able to criticize the map. However, you have yet to do that.
That said, I do have a problem with the map. They don't distinguish between areas of "no hate" (which would no doubt be below a certain threshold) and "no data". This is a major flaw and makes it difficult to evaluate.