Volume of Twitter Conversation Much Higher on Ferguson Story Compared with Trayvon Martin Number of posts on Twitter related to each event
On Twitter, how Ferguson compared with the Travyon Martin case
The shootings of Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin also developed differently as news stories. It took nearly three weeks for Martin’s death to generate national headlines. His shooting received hardly any coverage when it occurred on February 26, 2012. But the release of the 911 tapes several weeks later created a jump in the volume of conversation on Twitter.
The Ferguson story also generated more activity on Twitter than the Martin story did. More than 10.6 million tweets were posted about Ferguson from the day the shooting occurred through the eight days that followed. (Of those, about 8.3 million used the hashtag #Ferguson, while 2.3 million additional tweets without that hashtag were identified by the computer learning algorithm Crimson Hexagon.) In comparison, the Martin story generated about 4.7 million tweets during the entire month following his shooting.
Volume of Twitter Conversation Much Higher on Ferguson Story Compared with  | Trayvon Martin  | Number of posts on Twitter related to each event  | 4 MILLION  | Obama comments  | Mike Brown/Ferguson  | 3.648.032  | on Ferguson  | Trayvon Martin  | Demonstrators call  | 1.193 .218  | for arrest Zimme of George  | Obama says "Ifl  | Zimme man George  | had a son he 'd  | 911 tapes  | look like Trawon  | 692.456  | released  | Trayvon Martin  | 146 .183  | 306, .790  | 32, .518  | 34.778  | 394, .202  | Day of  | 5 days  | 10  | 15  | 20  | 25  | 30  | 33  | Shooting  | after  | Note: In 2012, 15% of U.S online adults used Twitter; In 2014, 19% of U.S online adults use Tw itter.  | PEW RESEARCH CENTER GRA PHIC BY JESSICA SCHILLINGER 