Wednesday, February 3, 2016

The Big Questions Analysis

I recently watched an episode of the BBC’s The Big Questions: Does social media reveal men's hatred for women? (YouTube link).


The speakers were:
  • Connie St Louis
  • Kate Smurthwaite
  • Milo Yianoppolous
  • Ella Whelan


There are other analysis that have focused more on this discussion. Specifically Rantzerker 33: TL; DR All the men hate the wimmins. Like this analysis, I too had the following general impressions:


  1. It wasn’t really a debate over yes or no - it was assumed that men hate women, and that social media reveals that fact.
  2. Milo is generally put up against two feminists, and a moderator that is mostly in the feminist camp.
  3. The feminists get more time to speak.


So, my goal lately is to challenge my assumptions - with data. Is my general impression of something actually correct, or is my confirmation bias leading me to the wrong conclusion? So let’s dive right in.


First off the episode was only 19:25 long (including intro, 10 seconds of silence, etc.), but the total amount of talk time, for everyone, was 20:23. There was a lot of people talking over others. Transcribing this episode, and teasing apart who was interrupting whom took hours and hours.


There were 234 statements from all speakers.

Interruptions

Before we get started I want to discuss interruptions. There was a ton of interrupting - by everyone. It was quite a vigorous debate, but interruptions are disrupting so I felt it was important to consider these in my analysis.


Not all interruptions are equal. Some are hardly noticeable and do not interfere with the other speaker, while others drown out the other speakers. This analysis only attempts to classify interruptions as either warranted or unwarranted. A warranted interruption is only these two specific conditions:


  1. You have been accused of a crime.
  2. You have been accused of lying.


Most people would not let those types of accusations go unanswered, and I think that most would not hold that against the interruptor. Interrupting because you disagree with someone else’s points, or facts, is considered unwarranted - regardless of how disruptive that interruption was.

Talk Time

This is the talk time for each speaker (ignoring the moderator and audience).


Interruptions
These times ignore interruptions. So, hypothetically, if in the middle of speaker A’s one minute statement speaker B talked on top of speaker A for ten seconds, speaker A is still counted as having spoke for one minute, and B for ten seconds. If a speaker had to break their statement and resume, either with or without repeating words, then these were broken into separate statements. If they were interrupted, but continued on, then they were recorded as a single statement. Either way the “interruptor” was flagged as having interrupted another speaker - more on that below.

Longest Statement Time

If I got a full minute to speak, and so did you, but in the middle of your minute I interrupted with a ten second statement then I think that should be counted. In that example the total speaking times are 1:10 vs 1:00, but having a solid minute to form a more cogent argument is an advantage in a debate. Here is the maximum speaking time for each speaker.

Interruptions

Because there were so many interruptions I felt it was important to take a look at who was interrupting, and who was being interrupted.


Number of times Interrupted another speaker
Number of times interrupted another speaker (unwarranted)
Number of times interrupted by another speaker
Number of times interrupted by another speaker (unwarranted)

Word Counts

Total words spoken
Words spoken during an interruption


Words spoken during an unwarranted interruption

Calls to Silence Another Speaker

I did notice several instances where speakers specifically asked the moderator to silence another speaker.
Ella’s request was to deny, not entirely seriously, was for Connie, Kate, and Milo to all be ignored. The other eight of Connie and Kate’s requests/complaints were all have Milo silenced.

First Call to Silence

Att 4:39 by Connie requested that the moderator stop Milo from speaking. Up to that point here were the stats:


Speaking Time


Interruption Count


Word Count
So at that time her (Connie’s) side already had nearly twice the number of minutes and words as the opposing side and had made a dozen interruptions - with none by either Milo or Ella.

Summary

I think my impression of imbalance was probably formed at the 25% mark when it clearly was imbalanced, and when Connie and Kate started calling for Milo to be silenced (see prior section). After that Milo corrected that imbalance, but could only do so by adopting their tactics. It was very clear that Kate was responsible for a disproportionate number of interruptions. I wonder what the debate would have been like had Milo been more gentlemanlike in his manner (sorry I just watched Pride and Prejudice). I doubt he would have got a word in edgewise.

I think this is why those in the men's right's community like Milo. He's articulate, informed, and a fighter. I look forward to his future appearances.

2 comments:

  1. Very well researched and put together. I believe it was obvious that one side was overwhelming the other with interruptions, but it's also good to have a complete analyses on which to base one's opinion. Thank you for your hard work.

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  2. Now send this to the BBC and tell them where they can stick their feminist agenda.

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