There has been an increasing attempt towards highlighting the impact of social media in the outcome of an election. However, it really needs to be understood that impacting the outcome of the election and spreading awareness about the political parties and leaders are two different aspects which normally people consider same. It is much difficult to gauge the impact of social media on the outcome of the election for the simple reason that there are other factors, including offline campaigning, which play a crucial role in the final outcome. Question is, does their exist a mechanism by which one can measure the impact of social media on the outcome of an election?
Hi Armit,
as you say, the interactions between social media and voting behavior are complex and also a clear differentiation between online and offline phenomena is quite impossible since social media have become a part of daily life. I think in order to measure effects it makes sense to differentiate between social media campaigning and the effects of individual networks and so-called echo chambers. Also, I would assume there are different mechanisms how social media affects voting, i.e. via promoting/ hindering political interests and via motivating/ suppressing voting behaviors.
Good luck with your research, Felix
Yes.
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0079449&utm_content=buffer414bc&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0079449&utm_content=buffer414bc&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Hi Armit,
Something that has also be done is just using brute force measures (i.e. using count measures for social media presence of candidates) on electoral outcomes. However, the authors of that paper (see link) did not find any direct effect for that on electoral success. They only found resonance effects. In contrast, brute force measures have a substantial impact in terms of candidates being mentioned in the mass media.
In that sense, maybe it might make sense to look both at the direct effect of social media activity on the electoral outcome and at the indirect link where social media activity resonates with traditional channels such as the mass media which then in turn influence the electoral results.
All the best,
Oliver
https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/x66vj/
Related work:
https://computationalsocialnetworks.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40649-017-0042-6
This work looks at Elections in India.
Bhola, A. Twitter and Polls: Analyzing and estimating political orientation of Twitter users in India General #Elections2014. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of M.Tech. in Computer Science, with specialization in Data Engineering. IIIT-Delhi. 2014. http://precog.iiitd.edu.in/Publications_files/Abhishek_Bhola_Masters_Thesis.pdf
you can interview white house, according to USA President Mr. Donald, his success thanks to God and also social media, especially twitter.. so it is said by president, better believe right?
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