On Feb. 11, 2017 a Citizen March for Respect of Mexico was held in 19 cities across Mexico, and supported by more than 77 civil organizations, educational institutions and business associations.
The aim of the march was to express the rejection of the immigration policies of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Astrid Velasquez and her team studied the social media discourse about this event from Feb. 6 to 13. The analysis drew on a sample of 50,000 mentions, of which 40,000 originated in Mexico. Twitter was the dominant social media used to create awareness about the movement, while local news provided follow-up coverage of the event.
One thing was agreed: there is widespread dissatisfaction with the way in which the Government of Mexico is reacting to the decisions of the current U.S. administration. While there was widespread acknowledgement of the difficulty of changing the situation, there was also a strong desire to protect the dignity of the country.
With respect to the march itself, fewer than 10 per cent of social comments showed enthusiastic support for the march. The majority sentiment about the march was negative, driven by suspicions that the event was created and used by specific politicians for their own political purposes.
The social media analysis provided a rapid and effective way to understand this phenomenon apart from the media reporting on the topic.
To read the full report, download the PDF, The Walk for Respect for Mexico: Analysis of Conversations in Digital Media