The recent identification of potentially extensive shale-gas resources within the United States has generated mixed public and political responses. The purpose of this study is to apply the Multilevel Model of Meme Diffusion (M3D) in an empirical case study of the fracking controversy. This analysis supports the heuristic value of the M3D and the value of digital technologies as indexes of controversial opinions, showing the potential of monitoring and registering social opinion trends with geospatially sensitive methods. This study integrates the fields of geography and computer-mediated communication technology to account for social processes.

A meme consists of any words or images in a text that can be replicated across communicators in the exchange of information. This study tests the Multilevel Model of Meme Diffusion (M 3 D) in a case study in the digital electronic technology that captures the controversial opinions regarding death penalty abolishment in Nebraska. The objective is to demonstrate that an internet-based study using social media data can be used to analyze and predict social processes engaging with phenomena in real space. The authors utilize the meme death_penalty in Twitter texts to predict public perception of death penalty abolishment in Nebraska. The M 3 D theory integrates the fields of geography and computer-mediated communication technology to explain and predict public opinion on the death penalty.

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The study of how space and place intersect with social policy is still nascent but developing rapidly. As two exemplars of the potential that such research offers, the objective of this review is to integrate the research collected during recent studies of fracking and the death penalty. The primary disciplinary value of this review is to demonstrate the spatial value of communication and social media studies. This study adopts a communication-based theoretical framework as a lens to guide methodological choices in analyzing public perceptions. The social media application from Twitter is used as the engine to capture opinions of social media users engaging public controversies. This review locates connections in the literature between geographers/spatial scientists and communication media theorists.

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