At Pulsar, we are driven by the mission to simplify and help you extract meaningful insights from any topic. So today, we are excited to introduce Themes in Pulsar TRAC, a powerful new approach to understanding the multifaceted nature of online conversations.
Themes acknowledges that while people may talk about the same topic, they rarely talk about it in the same way. Instead, what they discuss is a collection of interconnected, yet distinct, smaller conversations. By identifying and clustering these related conversations, Themes allows you to bring structure and meaning to conversations, revealing the key clusters of discourse that define and dominate your subject.
Why Themes
Traditional topic modelling often lacks the nuance to distinguish between closely related, yet distinct views within a conversation, or capture the subtle differences in how various groups discuss the same topic. Themes in TRAC have been designed to deconstruct this complexity into clearly defined clusters (presented in an easily digestible list format, as well as a network graph). With this approach we are moving beyond homogenous data aggregation, allowing for the granular analysis of the distinct stories, viewpoints, and communities that constitute any given topic. Doing this provides a unique layer of intelligence for researchers, and marketers trying to understand the subtle differences in how various groups discuss the same topic.
The core of Themes is a multi-stage data processing pipeline consisting of:
Topic & Conversation Clustering: We first identify dominant topics within a dataset and group related conversations into high-cohesion clusters to create distinct Themes.
AI-Powered Summarization: Each Theme is then summarised using AI (powered by DeepSeek) to generate a concise, descriptive summary.
Multi-Dimensional Analysis: Themes are then enriched with a range of analytical lenses, including sentiment, and volume of conversations.
Digestible Presentation Format: Lastly, the list of Themes is presented in a visual table, which can be exported to CSV or PNG.
For a relational view, a network visualisation toggle is also available, which shows how Themes intersect and connect, giving you a structural map of the discourse landscape.
A Deep Dive into Each Theme
By clicking into a Theme from the table chart or network chart, you can access a detailed breakdown of its components, providing a rich dataset for advanced analysis. This includes:
Conversation Dynamics & Unique Content Drivers
Track the scale of the conversation and visibility of each Theme across various social and online platforms and over time.
Isolate the content that is not just dominant but also unique to each Theme, giving you a clear signal of what defines the discourse.
Analyze the content within each Theme through Pulsar's unique multi lens view:
Use Engagement to Identify the most resonant content based on user interactions.
Use Media Reach or Social Impressions to quantify the potential audience size.
Use Visibility to Measure the actual exposure and impact of content.
Granular Audience & Influencer Segmentation
Themes also provides a powerful axis for audience segmentation. For each Theme, you can:
Analyze the specific audience demographics and interests of each Theme, allowing you to understand the distinct communities driving it.
Analyze the most influential voices shaping that Theme. This leverages Pulsar’s unique influencer identification model, which acknowledges that influencers are the key individuals who are not only prolific or vocal, but also have disproportionately high visibility and impact within that specific Theme.
This multi-lens methodology to analysing content and audiences is unique to Pulsar. Each lens surfaces a different dimension of content and influence, revealing not just what is being said, but how ideas spread and who shapes them.
Benefits of Themes
Identify Dominant Themes: Quickly grasp the main topics of conversation in any dataset or campaign.
Measure Conversation Scale: Understand the size of each Theme and how it spreads across different platforms.
Uncover Key Drivers: Discover the unique drivers and content that define each theme.
Identify Key Voices: Pinpoint the most influential voices behind each theme and understand their motivations.
Overall, Themes shift the focus from a flat stream of opinions to a structured, human view of discourse.
Availability
Theme Analysis is now available by default in all TRAC datasets. We are confident that this new feature will provide you with a more profound understanding of the conversations that matter to you. We welcome your feedback and encourage you to share your thoughts with us via the in-app chat or by emailing us at product@pulsarplatform.com.
To avoid confusion with our separate product Narratives AI, you'll notice that we’ve rebranded TRAC’s former Narratives feature to Themes, and introduced several new capabilities, including AI-powered Theme summarisation and an improved approach to topic clustering.