Twitter Predicting the 2012 US Presidential Election?

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 10-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel Maldonado ◽  
Vicenta Sierra
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Political Marketing ◽  
Media Content ◽  
Wisdom Of Crowds ◽  
Text Analytics ◽  
Electoral Outcomes ◽  
History Of ◽  
Efficient Alternative ◽  
Us Presidential Election

Throughout the history of elections, political marketing services have led significant efforts aimed at predicting electoral outcomes as essential evidence to refine campaign tactics. This study develops an analytical procedure based on the Wisdom of Crowds effect and on a supervised approach of text analytics over social media content to predict electoral outcomes. Direct application of this procedure is illustrated analyzing 508,000 tweets about the 2012 US presidential election, obtaining results that consistently predicted President Barack Obama as the victor from seven weeks before the election. The study outperformed several traditional polls and similar studies employing social media to estimate potential election outcomes. This procedure offers an efficient alternative to political marketing services and political campaign staff practitioners interested in developing electoral predictions. Contributions to the field, procedural limitations, additional opportunities for knowledge creation, and research streams derived are introduced.

scholarly journals A Review of Mormon Studies in China

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 375
Author(s):  
Hongmeng Cheng
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Election ◽  
National Level ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Internal Factors ◽  
History Of ◽  
Us Presidential Election ◽  
Chinese Scholars ◽  
Mitt Romney ◽  
High Level

Mormon studies in China began in the early 1990s and can be divided into three phases between the years of 2004 and 2017. The first Master’s and Doctoral theses on Mormonism were both published in 2004, and journal articles have also been increasing in frequency since then. The year of 2012 saw a peak, partly because Mormon Mitt Romney won the Republican nomination for the 2012 US presidential election. In 2017, a national-level project, Mormonism and its Bearings on Current Sino-US Relations, funded by the Chinese government, was launched. However, Mormon studies in China is thus far still in its infancy, with few institutions and a small number of scholars. Academic works are limited in number, and high-level achievements are very few. Among the published works, the study of the external factors of Mormonism is far more prevalent than research on its internal factors. Historical, sociological, and political approaches far exceed those of philosophy, theology, and history of thoughts. To Mormon studies, Chinese scholars can and should be making unique contributions, but the potential remains to be tapped.

scholarly journals Political communication in post-truth society

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-87
Author(s):  
Nina Gorenc
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
2016 Election ◽  
Us Presidential Election ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Political Apathy ◽  
The Impact

The research behind this paper is set in the context of the 2016 US presidential election that has come to symbolize the post-truth era. We conducted a literature review on the 2016 election, with the aim to better understand the impact of computational propaganda on the election outcome and on the behaviour of voters. The paper opens with a definition of post-truth society and related concepts such as fake news and computational propaganda. It explores the changes of political communication in a digital environment and analyses the role of social media in the 2016 election. It probes into phenomena such as the trivialization of politics and the loss of credibility of political actors, which are both common in post-truth societies. The reviewed literature seems to indicate that social media have become strong actors on the political stage, but so far not the predominant source of political information and influence on the behaviour of voters. The paper makes two important contributions. Firstly, drawing on the concept of post-truth society, it analyses the role of computational propaganda in the 2016 presidential election, and secondly, it attempts to explain the paradox of general political apathy on one hand, and increased political activism on the other. These are some of the challenges we are now facing, and in order to be able to cope with them it is important to acknowledge and understand them.

How Twitter drives the global news agenda: Tweets from Brazil, Russia, India, China, the UK and US and online discourse about the 2016 US presidential election

2021 ◽  
pp. 174276652110399
Author(s):  
Jane O’Boyle ◽  
Carol J Pardun
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
News Media ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Online Discourse ◽  
Political Communications ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Presidential Election ◽  
The Uk ◽  
India And China

A manual content analysis compares 6019 Twitter comments from six countries during the 2016 US presidential election. Twitter comments were positive about Trump and negative about Clinton in Russia, the US and also in India and China. In the UK and Brazil, Twitter comments were largely negative about both candidates. Twitter sources for Clinton comments were more frequently from journalists and news companies, and still more negative than positive in tone. Topics on Twitter varied from those in mainstream news media. This foundational study expands communications research on social media, as well as political communications and international distinctions.

One of Many Tools to Win the Election

2016 ◽  
pp. 210-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashik Shafi ◽  
Fred Vultee
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Agenda Building ◽  
Election Campaigns ◽  
Presidential Candidates ◽  
The Public ◽  
Virtual Presence ◽  
Us Presidential Election

Presidential campaigns today are increasingly integrating social media such as Facebook as an efficient tool to communicate with the public and organize their supporters. In a bid to explore how the Facebook is used by the politicians during election campaigns, this chapter explored official Facebook posts by two presidential candidates ahead of the 2012 US presidential election. The findings suggest Facebook was used in the campaign as a platform to organize like-minded voters, and reporting a virtual presence to the voters. Facebook was used strategically to resonate with the real-life campaign, and disseminate instant messages, rather than engaging in discussion with the public. The two candidates had only minor difference in the characteristics of their Facebook contents. The implication of the research for the online political agenda-building tactics is discussed.

The Internet and Access to Information about Politics

2019 ◽  
pp. 228-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
William H. Dutton ◽  
Bianca C. Reisdorf ◽  
Grant Blank ◽  
Elizabeth Dubois ◽  
Laleah Fernandez
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Internet Users ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Us ◽  
Echo Chamber ◽  
Us Presidential Election ◽  
Filter Bubble ◽  
Filter Bubbles

Concern over filter bubbles, echo chambers, and misinformation on the Internet are not new. However, as noted by Howard and Bradshaw (Chapter 12), events around the 2016 US presidential election and the UK’s Brexit referendum brought these concerns up again to near-panic levels, raising questions about the political implications of the algorithms that drive search engines and social media. To address these issues, the authors conducted an extensive survey of Internet users in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, and the US, asking respondents how they use search, social media, and other media for getting information about politics, and what difference these media have made for them. Their findings demonstrate that search is one among many media gateways and outlets deployed by those interested in politics, and that Internet users with an interest in politics and search skills are unlikely to be trapped in a filter bubble, or cocooned in a political echo chamber.

A hyper differential counterpublic: Muslim social media users and Islamophobia during the 2016 US presidential election

2019 ◽  
pp. 146144481989228
Author(s):  
Stine Eckert ◽  
Jade Metzger-Riftkin ◽  
Sean Kolhoff ◽  
Sydney O’Shay-Wallace
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
The United States ◽  
Muslim Population ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Detroit Metropolitan Area ◽  
Internet Users ◽  
Us Presidential Election ◽  
Presidential Election Campaign

We interviewed 61 Muslims in 15 focus groups from the most visible Muslim population in the United States: the Detroit Metropolitan Area. Participants shared their experiences of and responses to Islamophobia on social media and face-to-face during the 2016 US presidential election campaign and aftermath. Applying Fraser’s and Squires’ theories of counterpublics, we developed an adapted understanding of counterpublics in collapsed contexts of online and face-to-face spaces. We argue that everyday Muslim internet users in the United States are an example of a hyper differential counterpublic. They face the pressures of near ubiquitous and ever evolving Islamophobic attacks, while needing to engage with the internet for personal and professional purposes. We suggest that hyper differential counterpublics operate in collapsed contexts of mixed, unimaginable publics, switch between group and individual responses, and craft hyper situational responses to discriminations case by case.

Toxic masculinity in American politics: Donald Trump’s tweeting activity in the US presidential election (2016)

2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margalida Pizarro-Sirera
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Election ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Gender Performativity ◽  
White House ◽  
The Us ◽  
Twitter Account ◽  
History Of ◽  
Us Presidential Election ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Central Purpose

In the US presidential election of 2016, Donald Trump’s connection with his voters marked the history of American politics by electing a political outsider to the White House. Under a feminist scope, this article examines Donald Trump’s Twitter account. The central purpose of this article is threefold: first, to scrutinize Trump’s tweeting activity and his dissemination of hegemonic toxic masculinity through this platform; second, to assess the unfavourable representation of Hillary Clinton’s decentred femininity and third, to examine how Trump’s performative toxic masculinity immediately connected with his voters’ cultural capital via Twitter. Finally, through an analysis of the impact of Trump’s tweets on his followers, the findings from this study will highlight that Clinton’s decentred gender performativity and Trump’s shared capital with his voters may well have been a fundamental tenet of Donald Trump’s victory.

Preventing US election interference may be too late

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Black Market ◽  
Information Campaign ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Us Presidential Election ◽  
Media Manipulation

Significance With the 2020 US presidential election looming, there is more attention to the threat of foreign interference. In the 2016 presidential election, Russia carried out a broad information campaign consisting of fake social media accounts and targeted adverts spreading divisive political content to polarise the electorate. Impacts Trust in the results of elections worldwide will continue to decrease. Voters will doubt the veracity of the information they receive even in the absence of interference. The black market for social media manipulation tools will grow.

scholarly journals Specific features of using social media in presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2020 in the USA: a comparative analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 172-180
Author(s):  
D. Klyuchevskiy
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Marketing ◽  
Theoretical Contribution ◽  
The Us

The purpose of this article is to analyze the experience of using social networks as a political marketing tool in the US presidential elections. This article partially touches upon the global topic of marketization and digitalization of both the political process in general and at the level of the US presidential election. The paper highlights the changing role of social media as a policy tool, which today has become not only a tool for distributing content, but also one of the tools for analyzing data from the electorate. The author explores the possibilities of social networks, their strengths and weaknesses and development prospects in the field of political marketing. The work touches upon the role of social networks in the formation of «Electronic Democracy», their impact on the candidate's image and the relationship with the personalization of politics in the United States. The main method in the article is comparative analysis. The result was the definition of the role, key features of the mentioned social networks in the field of modern politics. A certain theoretical contribution is seen in the argumentation of the following observations: the speed of interaction between the candidate and the voter through social networks has increased, in addition, the area of image-making has been partially «digitalized». It was revealed that technologies of information influence on American voters, which positively influenced the results of the 2016 presidential election for the Republican candidate, lowered D. Trump's ratings during the 2020 elections.

scholarly journals Analyzing Political Polarization on Social Media by Deleting Bot Spamming

2022 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 3
Author(s):  
Riccardo Cantini ◽  
Fabrizio Marozzo ◽  
Domenico Talia ◽  
Paolo Trunfio
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Opinion Mining ◽  
Political Support ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Political Factions ◽  
Us Presidential Election ◽  
Twitter Users ◽  
Rich Data

Social media platforms are part of everyday life, allowing the interconnection of people around the world in large discussion groups relating to every topic, including important social or political issues. Therefore, social media have become a valuable source of information-rich data, commonly referred to as Social Big Data, effectively exploitable to study the behavior of people, their opinions, moods, interests and activities. However, these powerful communication platforms can be also used to manipulate conversation, polluting online content and altering the popularity of users, through spamming activities and misinformation spreading. Recent studies have shown the use on social media of automatic entities, defined as social bots, that appear as legitimate users by imitating human behavior aimed at influencing discussions of any kind, including political issues. In this paper we present a new methodology, namely TIMBRE (Time-aware opInion Mining via Bot REmoval), aimed at discovering the polarity of social media users during election campaigns characterized by the rivalry of political factions. This methodology is temporally aware and relies on a keyword-based classification of posts and users. Moreover, it recognizes and filters out data produced by social media bots, which aim to alter public opinion about political candidates, thus avoiding heavily biased information. The proposed methodology has been applied to a case study that analyzes the polarization of a large number of Twitter users during the 2016 US presidential election. The achieved results show the benefits brought by both removing bots and taking into account temporal aspects in the forecasting process, revealing the high accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed approach. Finally, we investigated how the presence of social bots may affect political discussion by studying the 2016 US presidential election. Specifically, we analyzed the main differences between human and artificial political support, estimating also the influence of social bots on legitimate users.

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