{"id":291506,"date":"2014-11-19T14:57:39","date_gmt":"2014-11-19T19:57:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/2014\/11\/what-can-a-little-birdie-twitter-tell-us-about-think-tank-ideology\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T15:17:46","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T19:17:46","slug":"what-can-a-little-birdie-twitter-tell-us-about-think-tank-ideology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2014\/11\/what-can-a-little-birdie-twitter-tell-us-about-think-tank-ideology\/","title":{"rendered":"What can a little birdie (Twitter) tell us about think tank ideology?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently, The Agenda<\/em> with Steve Paikin<\/em> made us think<\/a> about think tanks. One recurring theme in the discussion was that it’s hard for outsiders to infer a think tank’s ideology.<\/p>\n

Think tanks typically say they’re independent and non-partisan; they’re not left-wing or right-wing, they say they’re “evidence-based”. At the same time, media coverage often features think tank guests from opposite ends of the spectrum. And while the right-versus-left convention doesn’t always generate better policy discussions, by presenting a balanced view, the media can say that they too<\/em> are unbiased.<\/p>\n

The facade that no-one-has-an-ideology generates confusion. So an Agenda<\/em> producer, Hilary Clark, provided a useful cheat-sheet<\/a> (from Donald Abelson of Western University) to help viewers navigate these murky waters. This list classified several Canadian think tanks as \u201d\u0153right\u201d\u009d, \u201d\u0153centre\u201d\u009d, and \u201d\u0153left\u201d\u009d. Clark acknowledged these categories were problematic and subjective, but thought the list was a useful heuristic that might start a conversation about how outsiders view think tanks.<\/p>\n

This blog contributes one simple measure of inferred ideology to the discussion. It uses Twitter data and assumptions about the structure of social networks. Before getting to the results, let’s first review some key players and discuss the basic approach.<\/p>\n

The key players
\n<\/strong>Working at a Canadian think tank \u201d\u201d full disclosure: working at the IRPP \u201d\u201d<\/em> being on Twitter, and being fond of lists, I recently ranked Canadian think tanks based on their number of Twitter followers. This update shows the top 25 in my sample.<\/p>\n

\"Think_Tanks_top_25_followers\"<\/a>How might we infer a think tank’s ideology?
\n<\/strong>This list simply reports the number of followers of each think tank, but I wondered whether these followers might tell us something more about the think tanks themselves.<\/p>\n

Approach, assumptions and caveats<\/em>:
\nI’m using a broad think tank definition that includes some industry organizations and others that are not strictly \u201d\u0153research\u201d\u009d groups. This list \u201d\u201d and this blog post \u201d\u201d is not exhaustive, but is simply a first attempt to develop some data.<\/p>\n

The goal of the exercise is to assign numbers to things we can’t see and that people won’t tell us. I use two of the most-visible, highly-followed organizations as reference points: the Fraser Institute and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). For the sake of argument, the Fraser Institute will represent a \u201d\u0153right-of-centre\u201d\u009d viewpoint; CCPA will be \u201d\u0153left-of-centre\u201d\u009d. (My apologies; this will surely offend some people.)<\/p>\n

If a think tank has more followers in common with Fraser than with CCPA, then I classify it as more \u201d\u0153right-of-centre\u201d\u009d; those whose followers overlap more closely with CCPA’s are \u201d\u0153left-of-centre\u201d\u009d. (In jargon: identification assumes homophily<\/em> or love-of-the-same which is often found in social network studies). Based on this, I try to infer the messy construct of think tank ideology. Of course, where my assumptions are wrong, the results will be unreliable.<\/p>\n

Two examples illustrate the basic approach using data from the amazing tool Followerwonk<\/a>. First, consider the Broadbent Institute. The Venn diagram and accompanying table show that, of their 11,891 followers:<\/p>\n

\"Think_Tanks_broadbent\"<\/a><\/p>\n