Note: This page will be periodically updated to provide additional resources.
As the digital media landscape continues to change rapidly, the Center for American Progress Action Fund is conducting ongoing research on the ways that information is distributed online, while tracking trending topics and leading sources. This set of live-updating resources is designed to help researchers, communicators, and policymakers more effectively understand the ever-changing information environments on which the American people now rely.
The resources on this page use data from CAP Action’s social listening database, which spans more than 6,000 channels from more than 2,000 distinct entities producing political or policy-related content across platforms. CAP Action manually reviews and identifies each entity as progressive-leaning, conservative-leaning, or neutral, based on the issues the accounts amplify in their social media content.
The metrics for each post are generally accurate to within 48 hours of the time of the post. Where impressions data are unavailable, it is estimated based on engagement data using a proprietary model developed by CAP Action.
Resources:
- Topic Tracking: This tool analyzes social media trends and top posts related to specific policy-related topics, with interactive filters that allow users to drill down on specific topics, time frames, or platforms.
- Top Political Pages Across Social Media: This dashboard provides an overview of the highest-reaching pages engaging in political and policy-related conversations across social media.
- Keyword-Specific Top Pages and Posts: This tool provides the ability for users to input specific keywords and time frames to the CAP Action social media database and view the top pages and individual posts matching those filters.
Identifying accounts as progressive-leaning, conservative-leaning, or neutral
Sample issues that CAP Action identifies as progressive-leaning include: reducing income inequality, protecting LGBTQI+ rights, supporting minimum-wage increases, combating the climate crisis, reducing child poverty, protecting voting rights, reducing racial inequality, and protecting reproductive rights.
Sample issues identified as conservative-leaning include: reducing restrictions from public health measures related to COVID-19, opposing LGBTQI+ rights, promoting Christian nationalism, reducing immigration, minimizing restrictions on gun owners, and implementing tax cuts for corporations.
Pages identified as neutral have no consistent or discernible pattern in the issue stances they amplify.