Using Sentiment Analysis to Understand Public Policy Nicknames: Obamacare and the Affordable Care Act

In this study, we compared the social media net sentiment of one policy with two names. Specifically, we analyzed Obamacare and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to understand how social media users engaged with each term on social media from March 2010 to March 2017. The net sentiment was measured with a sample of over 50 million micro-blogs, and the analysis was done using a combination of digital instruments and human validation. We found a significant difference between the social media engagement and sentiment of both terms, with the ACA performing significantly better than Obamacare, despite Obamacare's higher conversation volume. With the ACA having an average of 26% less negative sentiment than Obamacare, the findings of this study emphasize the need to be careful when attaching nicknames to public policy. The findings also have implications for policymakers and politicians.