Evidence vs Public Belief in Market Research
The useful question is not only "what happened?" It is "when did people start believing a different story, and what evidence did that belief attach itself to?"
What the evidence says
Source evidence is what you can point to: a filing, a product change, a public record, an archived page, a dated quote. In source-based research, the claim should stay attached to the material that supports it.
What people seem to believe
Public belief shows up in news framing, social discussion, investor commentary, and the language competitors adopt. It is real signal — but it is signal about interpretation, not necessarily about ground truth.
Where the two disagree
Find where the public story is forming, breaking, or getting ahead of the sources. That gap is where market narrative tracking earns its keep. It is also where public sentiment vs source evidence becomes actionable for research — not as a trade call, but as a read on timing and framing.
Why loud discussion is not always useful
Volume can hide quality. A noisy thread can dominate attention while a quiet primary source carries more structural weight. Occlusion separates signal from noise by comparing discussion against sources instead of ranking posts by engagement alone.
Why source quality matters
Not every source deserves equal weight. A dated filing, a first-party company page, and a anonymous forum post play different roles. Good market research names the source, dates it, and shows how it connects to the story.
How Occlusion separates signal from noise
Occlusion treats public discussion as evidence of how people are interpreting the world — then compares that interpretation to primary sources and historical context. That is public sentiment market research done with discipline, not as a mood score.