Skip to main content
. 2020 Oct 22;11:535764. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2020.535764

TABLE 3.

Changes in tweet counts in response to influential events.

Peaka Date Influential eventsb No. of all tweets No. of original and reply No. of retweets Prominencec
(a) 6/21 A subcommittee meeting of the Cabinet Office’s Consumer Committee stated that it is difficult to make the labeling of genome-edited foods mandatory on June 20. 535 54 481 436
(b) 6/30 The Ministry of Health and Welfare (MHLW) began to collect public comments on genome-edited foods from June 27. 569 13 556 566
(c) 8/13 An opposition politician posted a tweet on August 13 insisting mandatory labeling of genome-edited foods. 802 13 789 799
(d) 9/20 The MHLW and the Consumer Affairs Agency announced their policies for handling and labeling genome-edited foods on September 19. 2,569 275 2,294 2,239
(e) 9/25 Many news introducing the basis of genome editing technology and reviewing government’s policies were widely publicized in TV programs, newspapers, and so on. 3,426 142 3,284 3,387
(f) 10/7 There seemed to be no major events, but there were various kinds of tweets on news, signature activities, and so on. 1,397 129 1,268 1,297

aThe first column represents the peaks in Figure 1. bInfluential events include government announcements, mass media, and tweets by influential public figures. cThe prominence of each peak is calculated using SciPy 1.4.1, which is module of Python.