Politics

The Year in News 2016

Published

7 years ago

January 2, 2017

Jeff Desjardins

The Year in News 2016

As an election year, 2016 was unequivocally political in nature.

It seemed like Donald Trump, Wikileaks, and so-called “fake news” dominated headlines throughout the year, regardless of what was going on in the world.

But how did the news cycle actually break down from a quantitative perspective?

For the second year in a row, we look to Echelon Insights for their infographic that analyzes the year’s news based on data from over two billion tweets.

Trumping the Conversation

While it is certainly no surprise that Donald Trump dominated the majority of political conversations, the actual numbers help to provide more clarity to this claim.

Trump consistently accounted for about 40-60% of the share of candidate mentions for the majority of the year leading up to the election, even during the primaries. Most of the time, this was roughly double that of Hillary Clinton’s share of mentions.

After November 8th, Trump mentions skyrocketed to make up nearly 80% of all candidate mentions.

Even though many of these mentions were of the negative variety, Trump proved that all publicity is good publicity. Trump’s statements got non-stop media coverage and social engagement, giving the Trump campaign a name recognition and mind share advantage. And ultimately, despite several controversial statements, this allowed his key messages to get relayed to the electorate where they were needed.

WikiLeaked

Hillary Clinton and the DNC also received no shortage of bad press – and these ended up being the two most-talked about “scandals” of the year by Twitter users in the U.S.

Here are the top 10 political controversies, and their number of mentions in 2016:

WikiLeaks/Hacking: 33,083,038
Clinton’s Emails: 21,123,778
Deplorables: 5,989,433
Electoral College: 5,330,993
Trump Tapes: 5,212,502
Voter Fraud: 4,789,013
Abedin/Weiner: 3,758,636
Fake News: 3,358,189
Steve Bannon: 3,108,580
Trump’s Taxes: 2,688,991

The original DNC leak from WikiLeaks in late-July prompted the resignation of DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz over allegations of the DNC undermining the Bernie Sanders campaign.

Meanwhile, the 50,000 emails from John Podesta were made available to the public in smaller tranches in October and November. The end result of this smart release strategy was that WikiLeaks and the hacks stayed in the news throughout the year, making it the top political controversy story (in terms of U.S. tweets) in 2016.

Related Topics:politics donald trump media tweets hillary clinton news Twitter

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Maps

Visualizing the BRICS Expansion in 4 Charts

We provide a data-driven overview of how the recent BRICS expansion will grow the group’s influence and reach.

Published

1 month ago

August 24, 2023

Marcus Lu

Visualizing the BRICS Expansion in 4 Charts

BRICS is an association of five major countries including Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Distinguished by their emerging economies, the group has sought to improve diplomatic coordination, reform global financial institutions, and ultimately serve as a counterbalance to Western hegemony.

On Aug. 24, 2023, BRICS announced that it would formally accept six new members at the start of 2024: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt, Argentina, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

In this graphic, we provide a data-driven overview of how the BRICS expansion will grow the group’s influence and reach.

Share of Global GDP

Because most of the new BRICS members are considered to be developing economies, their addition to the group will not have a major impact on its overall share of GDP.

The following table includes GDP projections for 2023, courtesy of the IMF.

Original BRICS Member	Country	GDP (USD billions)	Share of Global (%)
Yes	🇧🇷 Brazil	$2,081	2.0%
Yes	🇷🇺 Russia	$2,063	2.0%
Yes	🇮🇳 India	$3,737	3.6%
Yes	🇨🇳 China	$19,374	18.4%
Yes	🇿🇦 South Africa	$399	0.4%
No	🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia	$1,062	1.0%
No	🇮🇷 Iran	$368	0.4%
No	🇪🇹 Ethiopia	$156	0.1%
No	🇪🇬 Egypt	$387	0.4%
No	🇦🇷 Argentina	$641	0.6%
No	🇦🇪 UAE	$499	0.5%
-	BRICS Total	$30,767	29.3%
-	Rest of World	$74,362	70.7%

The original six BRICS members are expected to have a combined GDP of $27.6 trillion in 2023, representing 26.3% of the global total. With the new members included, expected GDP climbs slightly to $30.8 trillion, enough for a 29.3% global share.

Share of Global Population

BRICS has always represented a major chunk of global population thanks to China and India, which are the only countries with over 1 billion people.

The two biggest populations being added to BRICS are Ethiopia (126.5 million) and Egypt (112.7 million). See the following table for population data from World Population Review, which is dated as of 2023.

Original BRICS Member	Country	Population	Share of Global (%)
Yes	🇧🇷 Brazil	216,422,446	2.7%
Yes	🇷🇺 Russia	144,444,359	1.8%
Yes	🇮🇳 India	1,428,627,663	17.8%
Yes	🇨🇳 China	1,425,671,352	17.7%
Yes	🇿🇦 South Africa	60,414,495	0.8%
No	🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia	36,947,025	0.5%
No	🇮🇷 Iran	89,172,767	1.1%
No	🇪🇹 Ethiopia	126,527,060	1.6%
No	🇪🇬 Egypt	112,716,598	1.4%
No	🇦🇷 Argentina	45,773,884	0.6%
No	🇦🇪 UAE	9,516,871	0.1%
-	BRICS Total	3.7 billion	46.0%
-	Rest of World	4.3 billion	54.0%

It’s possible that BRICS could eventually surpass 50% of global population, as many more countries have expressed their desire to join.

Share of Oil Production

Although the world is trying to move away from fossil fuels, the global oil market is still incredibly large—and BRICS is set to play a much bigger role in it. This is mostly due to the admission of Saudi Arabia, which alone accounts for 12.9% of global oil production.

Based on 2022 figures from the Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy, BRICS’ share of oil production will grow from 20.4% to 43.1%.

Original BRICS Member	Country	Thousand Barrels per Day	Share of Global (%)
Yes	🇧🇷 Brazil	3,107	3.3%
Yes	🇷🇺 Russia	11,202	11.9%
Yes	🇮🇳 India	737	0.8%
Yes	🇨🇳 China	4,111	4.4%
Yes	🇿🇦 South Africa	0	0.0%
No	🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia	12,136	12.9%
No	🇮🇷 Iran	3,822	4.1%
No	🇪🇹 Ethiopia	0	0.0%
No	🇪🇬 Egypt	613	0.7%
No	🇦🇷 Argentina	706	0.8%
No	🇦🇪 UAE	4,020	4.3%
-	BRICS Total	40,454	43.1%
-	Rest of World	53,394	56.9%

It’s worth noting that China has been pushing for oil trade to be denominated in yuan, and that Saudi Arabia’s acceptance into BRICS could bolster this ambition, potentially shifting the dynamics of global oil trade.

Share of Global Exports

The last metric included in our graphic is global exports, which is based on 2022 data from the World Trade Organization. We can see that the BRICS expansion will grow the group’s share of global exports (merchandise trade) to 25.1%, up from 20.2%.

Original BRICS Member	Country	Exports (USD billions)	Share of Global (%)
Yes	🇧🇷 Brazil	334	1.3%
Yes	🇷🇺 Russia	532	2.1%
Yes	🇮🇳 India	453	1.8%
Yes	🇨🇳 China	3,594	14.4%
Yes	🇿🇦 South Africa	123	0.5%
No	🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia	410	1.6%
No	🇮🇷 Iran	73	0.3%
No	🇪🇹 Ethiopia	3.9	0.02%
No	🇪🇬 Egypt	49	0.2%
No	🇦🇷 Argentina	88	0.4%
No	🇦🇪 UAE	599	2.4%
-	BRICS Total	6,259	25.1%
-	Rest of World	18,646	74.9%

Unsurprisingly, China is the world’s largest exporter. Major exporters that are not a part of BRICS include the U.S. (8.3%), Germany (6.6%), the Netherlands (3.9%), and Japan (3.0%).

Who Else Wants to Join?

According to Reuters, there are over 40 countries that have expressed interest in joining BRICS. A smaller group of 16 countries have actually applied for membership, though, and this list includes Algeria, Cuba, Indonesia, Palestine, and Vietnam.

As the group grows in size, differing opinions and priorities among its members could create tensions in the future. For example, India and China have had numerous border disputes in recent years, while Brazil’s newly elected President has sought to “kickstart a new era of relations” with the U.S.

One thing that is certain, however, is that a new acronym for the group will be needed very soon.