Admittedly, what is generally dubbed as delirious “awards season” in the film and TV industry, Twitter is often the prime channel for movie fans to discuss who won what, and whether it was justified.
As a matter of fact, Twitter Oscars Index is an interactive line graph that shows how Oscar-contending films, actors and directors are benefiting from positive word-of-mouth in the form of tweets.
More so, the index delivers positive sentiment of tweets on a scale from 0 to 100; Twitter detailed how this works on its blog: “For instance, if a nominee has an Index of 80, comments about that nominee are more positive than roughly 80 percent of all the other terms on Twitter.”
Examining it more deeply, the micro-blogging hub explained as such: On Jan. 10 – the day when the Academy Awards were announced – David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook and Ang Lee’s Life of Pi were the Oscar contenders with the highest Index, 92.5. Per Twitter’s explanation, that means tweets about those films were more positive than roughly 92.5 percent of all tweets that day.
This novel concept offers a significant way to comb through the clutter of the Oscar tweets and observe some interesting trends about which contenders are getting the most positive feedback.
In a blog post, Twitter’s head of TV Fred Graver revealed that the move comes on the heels after Twitter witnessed more than four million tweets about the Golden Globes on Sunday, commencing the awards season-which also includes the Critic’s Choice, Screen Actor’s Guild, Director’s Guild, Writer’s Guild, Producer’s Guild, British Academy of Film and TV, and Academy Awards.
Backed by the Academy, the Twitter Oscars Index will reflect the “ebb and flow” of movie-related conversations throughout the awards season. The new index will evaluate and rank conversation about the Oscar-nominated films and actors over the next six weeks up to the ceremony on February 24, 2013, in Los Angeles.
Overall, the Index will assess the level of positive tweets and will echo the sentiment of tweets about major nominees in the six biggest Oscar categories-‘Best Picture’, ‘Best Actress’, ‘Best Actor’, ‘Best Supporting Actress’, ‘Best Supporting Actor’ and ‘Best Director’.
“Awards season also brings out the armchair film critic in many of us, as we rattle off our personal picks and pans, and predict who will take home that coveted award at the end of February. The Twitter Oscars Index offers a way to measure those discussions that happen on Twitter, and provide insight for all those closely following the exciting Oscar races. While the next six weeks are sure to be filled with crystal ball predictions of how the illustrious Academy members will vote, the Twitter Oscars Index provides another dimension to the story: the voice of the fans,” says Twitter.
The Oscar Index was produced in partnership with social-analytics provider Topsy, the same company that created Twitter’s Political Index during November’s election. You can check out the interactive Index here. Also, you will be able to organize the Index based on each category, as well as each nominee. The Index shows sentiment over time, so you can compare how Twitter users felt about the nominees on any given day since they were announced by the Academy.