Netizen sentiment index
Netizen Sentiment Index (abbreviated: NSI, Chinese:網絡民情指數) is a reflective index in tracking sentiments of netizens through their activities of engagement on the online platform, especially in consumers generated media, e.g. online forums, newsgroups, blogs etc. NSI is used to record and monitor changes of netizen’s sentiments over time and is an important indicator for marketers or PRs in understanding the most up-to-date netizen’s feelings and/or degree of optimism towards a particular brand, campaign or even a single incident or a person.
Purpose of NSI is to objectively evaluate netizen’s sentiments with reference to the vast sample size available online since whichever netizen who has participated in online discussions would be part of the sample. The representability of the NSI results is higher than typical scientific research due to the enormous sample size and data collected with the adoption of Digital Intelligence tools.
Objectives
Netizen’s sentiments and comments are of growing importance in the new digital media era. However a systematic and timely indicator in tracking netizen’s sentiments was absent in the Greater China before the establishment of NSI.
NSI aims to reflect netizen’s sentiments and attitudes on specific issue, individual, brand etc. It allows governors, reporters, marketers or any other parties to understand sentiments of netizen and prepare different measures in responding to them, if necessary.
NSI can also display trends and forecast changes in netizen sentiments.
Application
NSI was first introduced in November 2011 for political use (www.NSI.hk). It has successfully tracked the daily changes of netizen sentiments towards the four nominated candidates running for the 2012 Chief Executive Election of the HKSAR, namely Mr. Henry Tang, Mr. Leung Chun-ying, Mr. Albert Ho and Mr. Frederick Fung, for the period starting from 27 September 2011 till the completion of the 2012 Chief Executive Election in mid-March 2012.
Components
Computation of NSI: (Sentiments Score*30%) + (Opinion Expressers Ratio*35%) + (Responsiveness Ratio*20%) + ( Netizens coverage*15)
- Sentiments Score refers to the positive, neutral or negative sentiment of discussed topics, each with different weighting
- Opinion Expressers represents the fraction of the number of netizens who have expressed their opinions online in relation to the topic as stipulated over the overall number of netizens with opinions shared on whichever topics online within the same time frame
- Responsiveness represents the fraction of the number of posts in relation to the topic as stipulated over the overall number of posts shared on whichever topics online within the same time frame
- Netizens coverage explains the penetration of different topics among the Top 60 discussion forums in Hong Kong (in terms of Alexa Ranking, traffic and content quality), reflecting the characteristics of different groups of opinion expressers
NSI is capable in reflecting the popularity and attention-catching ability of each of the candidates. Sentiments score explains the popularity of individuals. A higher sentiment score implies a greater popularity and positive impression others would have towards the candidates. While the opinion expressers, responsiveness and netizens coverage explain the attention-catching ability of the candidates.
Other uses
NSI has multiple uses due to its flexibility and adaptability. It can be used in tracking netizen sentiments on different scope, industries, brands, campaigns etc.