Some media outlets are relying on measures of positive and negative sentiment in social media to forecast the Oscars. We are big supporters of the value of social media to understand public interest and opinion. But, as of now, there is modest predictive power in these social indexes; the data is too new to properly debias it, correlate it with outcomes, and fully understand its relative merit. For example, Ron Paul has consistently dominated measures of social sentiment, but it has not translated into victories at the polls. Followers of this social sentiment index are declaring a tight race for Best Picture, whereas The Artist has an overwhelming likelihood of victory.

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