Jonathan Nelson, Penn State University
Sterling Quinn, Penn State University
Brian Swedberg, Penn State University
Wanghuan Chu, Penn State University
Maggie Houchen, Penn State University
Todd Bodnar, Penn State University
Alan M. MacEachren, Penn State University
In October 2013, the US Congressional debate over allocation of funds to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (commonly known as the ACA or 'Obamacare') culminated in a 16-day government shutdown. Meanwhile the online health insurance marketplace related to the ACA was making a public debut hampered by performance and functionality problems. Messages on Twitter during this time period included sharply divided opinions about these events, with many people angry about the shutdown and others supporting the delay of the ACA implementation. We introduce SPoTvis, a web-based geovisual analytics tool for exploring Twitter messages (or 'tweets') collected about the shutdown. Using an interactive map connected to a term polarity plot, users can compare the dominant subthemes of tweets in any two states or congressional districts. Demographic attributes and political information on the display, coupled with functionality to show (dis)similar features, enrich users' understandings of the units being compared.