Polarization and acculturation in US Election 2016 outcomes – Can twitter analytics predict changes in voting preferences

Polarization and acculturation in US Election 2016 outcomes – Can twitter analytics predict changes in voting preferences

Grover, Purva (Indian Institute of Technology Delhi)
Kar, Arpan Kumar (Indian Institute of Technology Delhi)
Dwivedi, Yogesh K. (Swansea University)
Janssen, M.F.W.H.A. (TU Delft Information and Communication Technology)

2018

Elections are among the most critical events in a national calendar. During elections, candidates increasingly use social media platforms to engage voters. Using the 2016 US presidential election as a case study, we looked at the use of Twitter by political campaigns and examined how the drivers of voter behaviour were reflected in Twitter. Social media analytics have been used to derive insights related to theoretical frameworks within political science. Using social media analytics, we investigated whether the nature of social media discussions have an impact on voting behaviour during an election, through acculturation of ideologies and polarization of voter preferences. Our findings indicate that discussions on Twitter could have polarized users significantly. Reasons behind such polarization were explored using Newman and Sheth's model of voter's choice behaviour. Geographical analysis of tweets, users, and campaigns suggests acculturation of ideologies among voting groups. Finally, network analysis among voters indicates that polarization may have occurred due to differences between the respective online campaigns. This study thus provides important and highly relevant insights into voter behaviour for the future management and governance of successful political campaigns.

Acculturation in social media
eParticipation
Hashtag community
Polarization in elections
Public policy
Social media
Twitter analytics

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:21c0b325-2454-4219-9193-f5472fe0c469

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2018.09.009

2019-03-15

0040-1625

Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 1-48

Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2018 Purva Grover, Arpan Kumar Kar, Yogesh K. Dwivedi, M.F.W.H.A. Janssen