It does not seem strange to think that if during an electoral campaign a set of premisses is required for Twitter users, monitoring the mentions of candidates and political parties could give us clues about their voting intentions.
The series premisses:
1 / Select “twittaires” representative of different agents and population groups that transmit and/or receive messages related to the campaign: political parties, communication mitjans, candidates, political careers, journalists, communication assessors, and obviously the civil society.
2/ In the selection of tweets of the civil society and its followers, make sure that the different profiles of voters are included. It is not an easy task since the necessary information on Twitter is not always available.
3 / Select tweets that talk about topics related to the electoral campaign, the “twitters” have other things to talk about during elections as well. An optimal selection of paraules is essential at this point.
4 / Capture the tweets in a period of at least 8 to 10 days during the campaign, so that the actions of the parties and the communication of the materials can change the status of opinion of the voters to the extent that they are going on in the elections. Although all external factors may have an impact on the intention of voting, imagine how to follow the Spanish general elections of 2004 on Twitter.
Following the previous premisses, we have analyzed what has happened on Twitter in the electoral campaign of the general elections of Andorra on April 3, and the results have been as follows:
The buzz generated on Twitter during the electoral campaign will anticipate the results of the April 3 elections. Comparing the results of the elections with the mentions of each party and of each chapter of the list in the analyzed tweets, a very high correlation will be observed, especially for the two parties with the most votes:
– The Democratic coalition for Andorra and Toni Martí's second candidate, who will be the guanyadors of the elections, will also be the party and the candidate who will obtain the most mentions on Twitter during the electoral campaign.
– The Social Democratic Party and the second party of the list Jaume Bartumeu who will be in the second position in the name of votes, will also be the second party and the second party of the list with the most mentions on Twitter.
– Furthermore, the difference in votes between the first and the second, a 37% menys of votes for the Partit Socialdemòcrata with respect to Democrats for Andorra, is very similar to the difference in mentions to Twitter, a 34% menys of mentions for the Partit Socialdemòcrata with respect to Democrats for Andorra, and a 32% mentions of Jaume Bartumeu regarding Toni Martí.
– The rest of the candidates Eusebi Nomen (Andorra pel Canvi) and Isabel Lozano (Verds d'Andorra) will obtain a higher percentage of mentions on Twitter than the percentage of votes in the elections, but in both cases more than one percent of Toni Martí i Democrats for Andorra, with the results of the elections.
But despite the previous results, is it possible to categorically affirm that the greatest tweeter is going to end the elections?
As it is premature to affirm, it will depend on our understanding of the growth in this social field and its representativeness. In all cases, regarding the latest general elections in Andorra, the results will be very similar.
Attached below is the complete study on Twitter usage during the general elections in Andorra.
Francesc Camp
