The News in New Media

Balloon Wars

Posted on by mcridde

Americans are still scratching their heads concerning the sudden onslaught of news about surveillance balloons, UFOs, and other confusing aerial phenomena. What began with a single balloon over Billings, Montana has grown into at least 4 balloons identified and shot down over the United States. 

The saga of the balloon wars began on the 28th of January when the United States began tracking a large balloon entering US airspace over Alaska. News of the balloon was made public on Feb. 2 when local newspapers in Billings, MT began to report sightings. 

During the first 24 hours of the Thursday Feb. 2 newsbreak, most discussion occurred on Twitter with over 621k mentions of the Chinese balloon. The platform with the second most mentions of the Chinese balloon was Reddit as users shared links to news articles announcing the situation.

The most retweeted content during the initial 24 hours was videos of the balloon itself provided by amateur photographers from across the country.

The Twitter accounts of news agencies such as BBC and CNN tweeted links to their coverage of the story, and these messages were the most widely retweeted content during the initial story break, reaching the largest number of users.

By noon on Fri. Feb. 3 the conversation had become critical, with controversial Republican authorities and prolific tweeters like MTG and Lauren Boebert using their twitter accounts to malign the Biden administration’s reaction to the balloon. MTG, with 1.9 million followers on Twitter, holds particular sway over the conversation at this point, with her meme below reaching more users than even Fox News’ tweets linking to their coverage of the story.

The Twitter conversation during the afternoon and evening hours of Friday, Feb. 3 mentioned the balloon over 1 million times, with the hashtags #china and #chinesespyballoon used with predominantly negative sentiment. CNN reports Chinese foreign officials released a statement claiming that “The airship is of civil nature and is used for scientific research such as meteorology. Affected by the westerly wind and its own control ability is limited, the airship seriously deviated from the scheduled route”. However, Twitter users in America remained skeptical. As users debated the balloon’s origins, its level of threat, and the best course of action, the words most commonly associated with the terms ‘Chinese balloon’ were spy, emasculation, weakness, and communist.

For some users on Twitter, the situation provided ample fodder for jokes and memes. Many were critical of what some saw as Biden’s relaxed stance toward a potential threat to national security, while others seemed to argue that the fear was overblown.

South Carolinians like former Governor Nikki Haley also took to Twitter to voice their opinion from our unique position on the direct flight path of the balloon.

The saga of the first balloon came to an end here in the home state when it was shot down at 2:30 pm on Saturday, Feb. 4 off the coast of Myrtle Beach. Some users from SC shared their own images of the moment the F-22 jet engaged the balloon.

While the first balloon kicked off social media buzz, the conversation continues as three more high-altitude balloons have been shot down over US airspace in the last week. Keep an eye on the blog – and on the skies – for updates on the balloon wars.

Author: Molly Riddell

Posted in Tracking News via Social Media Analytics