Capturing real-time public discourse on marijuana beyond surveys is challenging but critical to understanding public opinion. Traditional surveys, such as the General Social Survey (GSS), have tracked Americans' opinions on marijuana legalization since 1973. However, these surveys alone do not capture the dynamic and real-time nature of discussions about marijuana on social media platforms. The rapidly evolving discourse on social media can provide a wealth of information that could influence or reflect public attitudes and behaviors, yet it has remained largely unexamined in conjunction with traditional survey data. Without understanding how marijuana and its legalization were discussed in the media environment, it is challenging to fully contextualize public opinion data. Researchers needed a tool that could provide insights into the sentiments, themes, and trends of marijuana-related discussions. Such a tool could bridge the gap between traditional survey results and the contemporary media landscape, offering a more comprehensive understanding of public opinion on marijuana legalization.

NORC’s Social Data Collaboratory developed a dashboard and data visualization tool to analyze trends in marijuana-related X content to complement GSS survey results. Created with support by NORC’s Venture Fund, this tool helped researchers understand how social media messages may have aligned with or influenced public opinions and behaviors related to marijuana legalization. The dashboard's overall panel displayed volume, engagement, and sentiment trends for marijuana tweets from August 2016 to February 2022. Volume measured the monthly count of posts, while engagement quantified retweets, replies, or quotes within 30 days of posting. Sentiment analysis, using VADER, assessed the ratio of positive to negative sentiment at the tweet level, summarized monthly. This tool also compared marijuana activity with politically salient topics on X, leveraging data from the X 1% sample stream and GNIP Historical Powertrack, accessible through NORC’s Social Data Explorer (SDE).