Montclair Drone Study: Nearly Half of Social Media Users are Afraid of Drone Sightings

With a rash of nighttime drone sightings over New Jersey starting in late November and continuing through early December, a team of faculty from the Joetta Di Bella and Fred C. Sautter III Center for Strategic Communication in the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University released a study today that revealed the number one emotion social media users have when discussing the phenomenon is fear.

Combing through more than 170,000 social media posts to gauge public sentiment, search volume and geo-targeted information about the drone activity, researchers found the following:

• Out of six emotions evaluated from the posts, fear was the dominant emotion at 45%, followed by disgust (28%), anger (15%), sadness (7%), joy (4%) and surprise (1%).
• Search activity for the word “drone” has increased by 1900% from the period before the first waive of mass drone sightings in New Jersey.
• Search activity for “drone” in New Jersey was greater than the combined activity of the other top five drone searching states, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Hampshire and Maine.
• Between November 26 and December 13, online conversation surged to 170,000 mentions (with 93,000 unique discussions) across social media platforms, marking a 19,000% increase compared to the prior period, which saw just 878 posts. A dramatic spike in activity occurred on December 11, with discussions increasing nearly 800% from the previous day.

The full study, which can be found here, was conducted by faculty Dr. Yi Luo, Dr. Jin-A Choi, and Dr. Bond Benton. It is the 23rd study released from the Joetta Di Bella and Fred C. Sautter III Center for Strategic Communication, which provides social media analytics tools and training for faculty and students for classroom learning and research projects.

“The data reflects the many people are frightened by these recent drone sightings, especially when you consider that lawmakers, state police and divisions of the federal government have admitted they don’t know their origin,” said Dr. Benton, a Professor in Public Relations and researcher at the Center. “Maybe it will turn out to be a big ‘nothing burger,’ but regardless of your interest in drones and the UAP topic, it will be interesting to follow what people see in the skies and what they share about it on social media.”

“This study hits-OK, maybe ‘hovers-’ close to home for us,” said Dr. Luo of the University that is located in northern New Jersey, just 12 miles from New York City. “The online data examined in this study showed that New Jersey is the leading state for drone-related searches.”

“The drone topic hasn’t lost momentum over the time period since we started examining the data,” said Dr. Choi, who is the Director of Data Analytics for the Joetta Di Bella and Fred C. Sautter III Center for Strategic Communication and an Assistant Professor of Advertising. “I suspect the dramatic spike we saw in conversations related to drones may continue to increase if sightings continue or no official explanation is offered about their origin.”

About the School of Communication and Media: The School of Communication and Media offers a range of dynamic programs in communication and media to a talented and diverse student population of over 2,000. Offering degrees in film and television, social media and public relations, advertising, journalism and digital media, sports communication, communication and media studies, animation and visual effects, and an MA devoted to strategic communication, the School prepares the next generation of communication and media practitioners and leaders. The School houses award-winning student programs that include WMSC Radio, The Montclarion newspaper,  Hawk Communications Agency, the Red Hawk Sports Network, Hawk+ OTT streaming platform, and News Lab, as well as the Center for Cooperative Media, which serves the public by working to grow and strengthen local journalism. Student projects and programs have recently received national recognition from PRSSA’s Bateman Competition, an Edward R Murrow Award, several Marconi Award nominations, and a College Television Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

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