Migration Patterns - Why Are @ProLifeCampaign's Followers Mainly American?

Cora Sherlock, deputy chair of the Pro Life Campaign, was kind enough to comment on a recent post where I discussed the organisation's Twitter stats. I encourage you to read both, but for those who can't resist skimming I'll summarise by saying that only ten per cent of this Irish organisation's followers are Irish, and 70% are based in the United States. I'll quote sections of Cora's response for context below.

Cora didn't specify if she was commenting in an official capacity or not. To my mind it is most charitable to assume her words were in a personal capacity and that is the interpretation I will take unless corrected. I should also add that at present I have no reason to believe that Cora runs the @ProLifeCampaign Twitter account - as such any criticism of the account should not be read as directed at Cora. Indeed I'm grateful to her for interacting; it is not a step taken by any other anti-abortion group I've covered.

I've taken the liberty of assigning headers to what I feel are Cora's main points.

Pro Life Campaign - an end to carrots?

I approach this post with a certain amount of dread. Any time I look at the Twitter statistics of groups opposed to abortion in Ireland I invariably find myself beating a fresh path to the oft visited conclusion: they're mainly American. It grows harder and harder to provide entertainment to those willing to accompany me on this journey.

Finding the poverty of Irish numbers supporting Youth Defence in my initial post of this sort was quite amusing. But as I worked my way through the Life Institute, Ireland Stand Up, David Quinn and Ronan Mullen, seeing each one dominated by either Americans, men, or American men, using my unique method of pulling Twitter stats began to become more of a chore.

So, this will be my last check of Twitter geography of anti abortion groups in Ireland. My reasoning is simple - I'm out of material. The only two left are the Life Institute (stats given to the excellent Red Lemonader, looking forward to reading her take) and the Pro Life Campaign, which ran last night.

Craig's List And The People Of The Law

Sometimes it's nice to start from a point of idle curiosity. In a previous installment I prepared a word cloud of the Twitter biographies of those who follow Stephen Law and William Lane Craig. I drew no conclusions from it; there really wasn't enough hard data.

Stephen Law was kind enough to take an interest and we had a brief Facebook chat. I showed him another post of mine on the Discovery Institute. For that one, I'd pulled a list of everyone who follows the Discovery Institute. They're an anti-evolution group with delusions of science, saying their belief in an Intelligent Designer is not motivated by prior theological conclusions. Taking this list of their followers I then found out what each Intelligent Design fan followed. I put the results into a matrix and found that the majority of Discovery Institute fans have a pronounced primary interest in Christian apologetics and no interest in science.

Much as I enjoyed writing that post I find it hard to approach Craig's followers in a similar manner. For one, it would be ludicrous of me to point out that their primary interest is in Christian apologetics and present it as some sort of unexpected finding. Secondly, having met a few fans of Craig I find they tend to be doing their best to work out this mystery called life and are in the main pleasant folk, willing to converse with those of different viewpoints and generally open-minded. That I do not share their conclusions does not mean I do not hold them in some respect.

Let's look at the top twenty for each. First we'll look at those accounts that are most popular with William Lane Craig followers:

We Are All Savita

The title of this blog post is not original. I saw it on a placard when I marched on Saturday. And the constituent parts of the image below are also not my work - they're the profile pictures of the Twitter followers of @ProudProChoice and @ChoiceIreland. Later, based on welcomed feedback in the comments section I added in 583 profile pictures from the march for Savita Facebook event. (Technical reasons prevent me from viewing more.)

It's a collaborative effort. I know many who grieve are not represented below; unfortunately there's no way for me to get images of everyone. It's flawed and imperfect, but in some small way it shows me that when we work together we can remember someone beautiful.

Now let's remember her through legislation.

Update December 5th, 2012: many more have supported or attended marches calling for legislation on the X case. I've rerun the procedure and produced an updated image - the increased number of supporters has resulted in a much sharper image:

Morbid Make It Happen Foundation

From the Make It Happen Foundation's YouTube channel: "We try to take as many children as possible each year on fun filled excursions and the sad part is some of these children don't make easter [sic] of the following year"

Given that the organisation has existed for less than a year I find this rather disturbing.

ChooseLife2012 twitter stats

I was asked to look at @ChooseLife2012 on Twitter. It's an initiative of the Irish Catholic Bishop's Conference, is against abortion, and has a number of tweets on repeat that encourage prayer and talk of embryo development.

I like to think I approach these things with an open mind and listen to those with a different viewpoint. I've made information public on Youth Defence, but I've also made information public on Proud Pro Choice and Choice Ireland. I've offered my services to pro-life groups and feel there is nothing to fear from accurate data.

So what did I find on @ChooseLife2012? Nothing much. The accounts they follow are primarily based in Ireland, are a sane, reasonable and in some cases interesting bunch. Those following them are also based in Ireland. The gender balance seems fair. If pushed for a complaint I'd quite like it if their site didn't say "Volunteer for a pro-life group" without providing clarity on which groups they deem worthy of support. Still, hardly the worst I've encountered.

Ronan Mullen Twitter Analysis

I checked @RonanMullen's Twitter account but find it far too dreary to warrant an extended commentary. If you like, reread my piece on David Quinn and do the necessary search and replace.

Instead I offer the stats and images to my fellow bloggers, regardless of position, to do with as they wish.

Do tweet me or comment with a link when done below. If I like, or strongly dislike your take on the numbers I'll be sure to publicise it for you.

Number of followers: 1,202.
Number of people followed: 20
Total number of women followed by Ronan Mullen: Two.(@MiriamOCal and @LCreighton)
Number of those women who follow him back: One. (@LCreighton)