Student no.

130052853 SGM257

Department of Sociology

Module Name: Social Media Engagement: From Theory to Practice

Module Instructor: Patty Kostkova

Q: The role of Social Media in US Elections (choose 2008 or 2012)

“We are a nation of Google and Facebook” (Obama, 2011)

4399 words

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Contents

List of Abbreviations 3

Introduction 4

Part One 6

2008 US Presidential Election 6

2012 US Presidential Election 7
Comparisons 8

Part Two 10

Twitter defined 10
Can Twitter predict an Election outcome? 11
Criticisms 12

Deliberations 12

References 14

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List of Abbreviations

ABC American Broadcasting Company

CNN The Cable News Network
NBC National Broadcasting Corporation
SM Social Media
SNS Social Networking Site (s)
UGC User Generated Content
US The United States of America

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Introduction

This essay will examine the role of social media, hereafter SM, in the 2012 US Elections.
In order to achieve this, a comparative analysis of the role SM played in both the 2008 and
2012 US elections will be conducted. The role Twitter played throughout the elections will
be discussed using a case study on predictability of elections to support the argument; on
whether or not it can forecast the outcome of an election. Lastly, the drawbacks of using
SM in an electoral process will be identified.

According to Kaplan and Haenlein (2010: 61), Social Media is defined as ‘a group of
Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of
Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content (UGC)’.
Kaplan and Haenlein (2010:60) contend that the trend towards social media can be
considered as an ‘evolution back to the Internet’s roots, since it re-transforms the World
Wide Web to what it was initially created for: a platform to facilitate information exchange
among users.’

Web 2.0 and UGC, became popularized terms in 2004 and 2005, respectively, coinciding
with the creation of social networking platforms, Facebook (2004) and YouTube (2005).
Suddenly, a virtual public sphere was established, allowing for information dissemination
and UGC among users through the many-to-many sharing platforms. Scholars divide SM
into six categories: social networks, bookmarking sites, social news, media sharing, micro-
blogging, blog comments and forums (Grahl, n.d).

Social networking sites are especially popular among young Internet users, and millenials.
Forrester Research specifies six types of online SM users: ‘Creators, Critics, Collectors,
Joiners, Spectators and Inactives’ (Brockdorff, 2010). McLuhan (1962:31) argued that ‘the
process of new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global
village’. The creation of virtual communities existing in a virtual world coincides with
McLuhan’s ‘global village’ prediction, which is occupied by all of these types of Internet
users.

Social networks have become an ‘outlet for the voiceless’ (Al-Suwaidi, 2013:27). The
monopolization of state media and regulatory sanctions is diminished with the
democratization of the Internet. Freedom to broadcast and publish without interference by
the traditional gatekeepers allows social networks to circumvent media restrictions.
Furthermore, SM allows for a two-way flow of communication, versus the one-way flow
experienced from traditional mass media.

The instantaneous feature of SM threatens traditional news outlets necessity, providing

news in real-time, versus the slower nature of traditional mediums. The once media
consumer now occupies the role of producer/consumer, evident in the rise of ‘citizen
journalism’. When Obama announced his running mate in 2008, he did so by sending out a
mass text message to supporters and news agencies simultaneously. As a result, he
bypassed the press process entirely. However, there still exists the need for traditional news
outlets to fact-check stories and a press who have established clout and access within the

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political spectrum, offering the public news, out of the reach from the average citizen
journalist. Moreover, the rise in citizen journalism should address the issues of the
ephemeral nature of the medium and that much of the content produced are monological, or
never listened or responded to, seen prevalently on Twitter and YouTube. Furthermore,
traditional media is still a heavily used and reliable medium among the older demographic.

‘Twitter and other SNSs are still seen as complementary to traditional outreach mediums
(Towner and Dulio, 2012; cited in Conway et al., 2013). Traditional news outlets have
started to adapt and embrace SM, establishing interconnectedness between both media.
‘The news content of traditional media has to rely on information from social networks
such as Twitter and Facebook’ (Al-Suwaidi, 2013:93). Additionally, SM has witnessed a
proliferation of opinion makers/leaders, ‘who have a significant influence on the views of
other users on various issues and topics, overpowering the traditional dominance of the
authorities which has declined remarkably’ (Ibid).

When Habermas’ wrote about the public sphere, he meant it as a democratizing circle
where individuals could engage in public discourse of politics and societal issues without
fear of law breaking – a ‘realm of social life in which public opinion can be formed’ (Asen,
1999:115-129). Today Habermas’ theory has evolved to the virtual sphere; the Internet and
SM has ‘redistributed political influence; broadening the public sphere, increasing political
participation, involving citizens in political activities that were previously closed to them,
and challenging the monopoly of traditional elites’ (Hindman, 2009:6).

A poll conducted by Pew Research, found that 60% of adult Americans use either
Facebook or Twitter, and that 39% of those users use social networks for political purposes,
such as learning the positions of presidential candidates and user interaction regarding
political and electoral issues. The number of Americans who follow candidates or other
political figures on SM has risen to 16% of registered voters, seeing a 10% increase from
2010. Moreover, research shows that Republicans and Republican-leaning independents
choose to follow political figures on SM to receive breaking political news first and to
acquire political information that has not passed through the traditional media ‘filter’
(Smith, 2014). Political participation has seen an increase in mobilizing previously inactive
citizens; in addition, SM has become a robust forum for political debate (Hindman,
2009:2). Consequently, users experience a feeling of empowerment to express political
opinions and engage in debates, unachievable without the freedom of SM.

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Part One

2008 US Presidential Election

The 2008 US presidential campaign provided a unique opportunity to assess the

effectiveness and applicability of SM in the US political environment. It was evident in the
transformative role it played that SM qualifies as the new sine qua non of American
politics, offering new insights into political communication (Metzgar and Maruggi,
2009:141).

The fundraising mechanism of SM was the most notable revelation. Obama raised a record
breaking $750 million for his campaign (Luo, 2009). His MyBO SNS, was used
extensively to raise money for the campaign. Supporters created the ‘Obama Minute’ on
MyBO with the goal of raising $1 million in a minute at 1:00pm on April 21, 2008
(Clayton, 2010:141). The event raised $250,000, demonstrating the phenomenal
fundraising potential of SM and major political activism on the part of Obama supporters
contrasting McCain supporters. This is a clear example of crowdsourcing used for
fundraising.

Pew research (Smith, 2009) reported that television still remained a dominant source of
political news in the country, with newspapers declining and the Internet catching up just
2% short of newspapers. Nonetheless, SM saw a rise in online political users; more than
half of the US population (55%) accounted for online political users, a total of 74% of all
Internet users. 59% of Internet users shared or received campaign information using email,
IM, text messages or Twitter.

Despite, the prevalent role SM played in the unfolding of the election Metzgar and Maruggi
(2009:141) argue otherwise, stating little evidence was found to suggest that SM ‘drove
discussion, participation, or outcomes, noting that they are no replacement for message,
motivation, or strategy’. In this light, social media was seen as an effective tool, however ‘it
was difficult to identify any case where SM set the agenda for discussion of an issue’
(Dundas, 2014: 499). Moreover, SM was identified as useful in disseminating the campaign
message and promoting on-going engagement.

Statistically speaking, the day before the general election ‘indicated that the Obama
campaign was more active with SM than the McCain campaign. On Facebook, Obama had
2,379,102 supporters. McCain had 620,359. On Twitter, Obama had 112,474 followers to
McCain’s 4,603. On YouTube, there were more than 18 million channel views for Obama,
compared to 2 million channel views for McCain’ (Metzgar and Maruggi, 2009:151). The
inexpensive feature of SM functioned as a vital campaign tool to both campaigns, however
McCain’s inadequate exploitation of SM was met with unfavorable results and negative
consequences.

‘Technology compresses the time and space in which information passes’ (Metzgar and
Maruggi, 2009:151). Twitter, with its 140 characters message limit, can be deceptively
disruptive as seen in the political rumor mill. When rumors of candidates emerge in the

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national political blogosphere, it is harder to quiet than with traditional media. Governor
Palin’s pregnancy rumor spread like wild fire, exposing the damaging and powerful effects
of SM. Similarly rumors surfaced questioning Obama’s heritage and eligibility to run for
office, which consequently had a ripple effect on public opinion.

An unprecedented merging of traditional and social media was established. ABC joined
with Facebook to provide debate information; CNN, and YouTube worked together to
establish a debate forum where users submitted questions via YouTube, which were then
answered through CNN, promoting media bipartisanship.

2012 US Presidential Election

Social media was ubiquitous four years later. A proliferation of new technologies and faster
broadband had equipped most of the country with smartphones (35% of American adults).
A study by MDG Advertising concluded that Facebook’s membership increased from 44.3
million in 2008 to 143.3 million users in 2012. Likewise, Twitter jumped from 3.4 million
users in 2008 to 24.1 million in 2012 (The Social Campaign). Moreover, 82% of adults
received most of their election news online in 2012, versus 26% in 2008 (Ibid). According
to Gainous and Wagner (2014:25), ‘the larger the magnitude in SNS use, the likelihood that
social media can affect political outcomes becomes greater’.

Despite societal concerns about SM promoting civic disengagement, the data proved
otherwise. Pew Research (Smith et al., 2012) conducted a survey prior to the 2012 election,
revealing 66% (39% of American adults) of SM users actively engaged in political
activism, within SM. Contrary to suggestions, Figure #1 demonstrates the increase in civic
engagement among SM users, especially young users. ‘The real power of social media is
not in the number of posts of Tweets but in user engagement measured by content
spreadability’ (Rutledge, 2013).

Although most candidates utilized the many new SM platforms; Twitter, Facebook and
YouTube were the three most prominent. In November 2012, Obama secured 28.7 million
Facebook “likes” and 23,634,860 Twitter followers. Meanwhile, Romney headed the
Republicans with 7.1 million Facebook “likes” and 1,754,110 Twitter followers. This was
an exponential surge for the incumbent Obama from the previous election.

With regards to the overall impact SM had on user’s political views, Pew Research (Smith
and Rainie, 2012) found that 16% of SNS users changed their views about a political issue
after discussing it or reading posts about it on the sites. Meanwhile, 25% of SNS users
became more active in a political issue after discussing it or reading posts. This reinforces
the societal impact of the virtual sphere and opinion leaders on altering public opinion.
Similarly, SNS has influenced users to participate in the voting process. Facebook, in 2008
and 2012, placed an announcement on the top of user’s news feeds with a red-white-and-
blue election button (Shepardson, 2014). Pew (Rainie, 2012) findings showed the 22% of
registered voters used SM to let others know how they voted. Additionally, 30% of voters

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were encouraged to vote for Obama or Romney by friends and family through postings on
SM sites; Facebook and Twitter (Smith and Rainie, 2012).

Figure 1:

Comparisons

Social media’s propensity as a fundraising mechanism, inexpensive way of gathering voter

data, reaching the youth vote, organizing and engagement and dissemination of the
campaign message, served as a useful tool and strategy in both the 2008 and 2012 elections.
It has created a significant change in the US political landscape changing the campaign
dynamic. Social media builds political dialogue, placing the power of political messaging
into peer-to-peer, public discourse. Furthermore, the emergence of opinion leaders on SM
has a direct role in shaping public opinion. For instance, celebrities who represent the top-
ten most followed end users, have in both elections played vital roles in procuring voters
for their candidates. Certain celebrities are considered opinion leaders, like Oprah Winfrey
for Obama and Clint Eastwood for Romney – these celebrities have profound social impact,
which they channel toward rallying support for their political candidates respectively.

Based on an analysis of both election campaigns, Obama’s effective and efficient

utilization of SM to further his campaigns proved successful in both instances. In 2008,
Obama’s campaign used SM to engage the youth demographic online, reach first-time
voters; expose the fundraising capacity of SM, and encourage activism among registered
voters online. McCain’s ineffective use of social media saw its potential unrealized.
Although McCain’s supporters accounted for more Internet users than Obama (83% vs.
76%), McCain could not secure the SM support in users as Obama accomplished.

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Regarding the 2012 election, Romney and Obama’s most common purpose for Facebook
posts was to promote their candidacy (Borah, 2014). A study using content analysis of each
candidates’ Facebook pages to determine politician’s use of SNS to reach out to voters
found that, in cases of ‘attack and contrast posts, Romney used the strategies more
frequently i.e. Romney pursued a more aggressive campaign on Facebook, using negative
strategies and fear appeal’ (Borah, 2014:201). Only one instance showed Obama on the
attack, sharing a video about the 47% comment made by Romney. Obama’s campaign was
more passive; ‘promoting events, sharing campaign images and highlighting the importance
of voting’ (Ibid). Both candidates used strategies of emotional appeal in posts, with
Obama’s posts consisting mainly enthusiasm about the elections and humor, versus
Romney’s use of fear appeal (Borah, 2014). Contrasting the 2008 election, Obama’s
campaign posted less than Romney: 23 times vs. 59 times, respectively.

An examination of Twitter feeds of the Republican candidate found that Romney used
Twitter to ‘build his credibility, connect to his audience, and explain his policies’ (Borah,
2014:202). Similar to Obama’s 2008 and 2012 strategy, Romney circumvented the media
in his use of Twitter to connect to his audience. Similar to the 2008 merge of media, CNN
teamed up with Facebook providing Election Night data and analysis of the activity on its
extensively used social media platform (Ibid). NBC teamed with Crimson Hexagon, and
analyzed Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and other social media activity; and ABC partnered
Yahoo and other providers. Romney and Gingrich promoted widespread speculation, when
both candidates were accused of ‘buying followers’ on Twitter, after their accounts saw
rapid spikes in followers – indicative of bot involvement (Gaffney and Furnas, 2012).
Although Romney’s team made no admission, the evidence proved bot involvement based
on statistical analysis conducted by Gaffney and Furnas (2012).

Again in 2012, Obama’s team utilized crowdsourcing by encouraging other voters and
raising funds (Rutledge, 2013), succeeding in raising nearly $1 billion. Adversely,
Romney’s campaign suffered a blow ‘by their lack of understanding the phenomenon of
memes and the fluidity of Internet media channels’. Obama’s final aspect of SM success
came from the ‘increasing sophistication of online data collection – which allowed the team
to model behaviors and coordinate target communications based’ (Rutledge, 2013).

Additionally, in 2008 both candidates used a diverse range of SM, mainly used as a one-
way communication, especially in fundraising efforts. Contrary, in 2012 both candidates
used the major SNS, with specific attention to Twitter - that Obama was unsuccessful in
effectively utilizing in 2008 – to establish a two-way communication.

The comparative analysis was used to examine the effectiveness in the role SM played in
the 2008 and 2012 US presidential elections; which focused on the candidates’ successes
and pitfalls, and statistical analysis of SM users engagement. In further analyzing the
effects of SM, the question remains whether these results can forecast the outcome of an
election. The feasibility of this query will be examined through empirical research studies
on the issue of predictability of elections using Twitter. The purpose of using Twitter
versus other SNSs is due to its message confinement and ‘the lack of restrictions on
viewing messages in the form of account-owner permissions’ (Conway et al., 2013).

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Furthermore, the micro-blogging platform will be analyzed based on the 2012 US

presidential election.

Part Two

Twitter defined:

Twitter is an easy to use, micro-blogging SNS platform that enables end users to ‘maintain
a public web-based asynchronous “conversation” through the use of 140-character
messages sent from mobile phones, mobile Internet devices, or through various websites’
(Murthy, 2013:1-2). Founded by co-founders, Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams in 2006,
Twitter’s mission is to ‘give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information
instantly, without barriers’ (Twitter, 2015).

Messages on Twitter, termed “Tweets”, are ‘automatically posted and made publically
accessible on the user’s profile page on the Twitter website’ (Murthy, 2013:2), drawing
similarities to Facebook’s status update function. Twitter users promote dialogue on the
network by using the @username function. ‘Though restricted to 140 characters, Twitter
has simple yet powerful methods of connecting tweets to larger themes, specific people,
and groups’ (Ibid), witnessed in electoral smear messages. Murthy (2013) identifies that
this is the ‘unique aspect of the medium’. Tweets can be ‘categorized by a hashtag’, which
plays an essential role in linking and connecting conversations of users together. Moreover,
Twitter is ‘designed to facilitate interactive multi-casting’ versus the one-to-many features
of traditional media (Murthy, 2013:6). ‘A retweet (RT) allows people to forward tweets to
followers and is a key way in which Twitter attempts to facilitate the (re)distribution of
tweets outside one’s immediate, more bounded network to broader, more unknown
audiences’ (Ibid). This particular feature is central in the ways tweets become noticed by
other followers on Twitter. Furthermore, ‘if a tweet is retweeted often enough or by the
right persons, it gathers momentum that can emulate a snowball effect’ (Ibid) seen in the
recent viral trend of “The Dress” on Twitter. To date, Twitter has 288 million monthly
active users and generates 500 million Tweets daily, 80% of active users are on mobile
while 77% of accounts are outside the U.S. (Twitter 2015).

In comparison to Facebook, Twitter is often considered a ‘public version of Facebook’,

with its many similar features. However Murthy (2013) argues that Twitter is ‘markedly
distinct from Facebook’s friend-centered social network model’. Revisiting the six types of
SM presented earlier, Facebook and LinkedIn all conform to ‘social networks’, whereas
Twitter is a micro-blogging platform. Moreover, Twitter followers establish connections
versus relationships.

Privacy on Twitter ‘offers a simple binary of public versus restricted’ unlike Facebook’s
‘highly detailed and customizable privacy settings’ (Weller et al, 2014:170). However,
users can restrict availability of tweets by making their accounts ‘private’ and accessible
only to authorized followers, and using the block feature. Furthermore, Twitter ‘provides a
Privacy policy describing the information it collects and how it might be used or shared
with third parties’ (Twitter, 2012).

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Can Twitter predict an Election outcome?

The case study employed in this essay has been chosen due to its use of predictive analytics
and the fact that it is the most recent case study found on SM predictive power.
This study forecasting the 2012 Election’s outcome, involved tweets collected from
September 29, 2012 until November 16, 2012 using only selected political-related tweets
(Jahanbakhsh and Moon, 2014). A Twitter crawler was employed that uses Twitter
streaming API to collect political-related tweets in real-time. Political tweets were
examined to determine predictability of the election outcome. Content analysis was
performed by running sentiment analysis and topic modeling on a representative sample of
tweets within the three-month span, which was compared to sentiment analysis results of
Twitter with traditional pollster results within the same time span.

The study determined that Twitter proved a powerful source of information to predict
election outcomes such as the 2012 US election. Prediction results from political tweets
matched with pollster results especially closer to Election Day, however with some latency.
Geographical sentiment analysis of tweets allowed for election outcome predictions for 76%
of states successfully, failing in Florida’s prediction. Finally, topic modeling uncovered hot
political topics discussed in SM (Jahanbakhsh and Moon, 2014). However, it was noted that
‘using Twitter data for prediction allowed researchers to get real-time insights from people’s
opinions in a virtual space’ (Ibid). Moreover, an advanced machine learning and language
processing (ML-NLP) engine was developed to enable researchers to run text analysis and
using the Naïve Bayes classifier for sentiment analysis.

The python crawler ran from the three-month duration collecting 39 million tweets. The
number of collected tweets before the Election Day was approximately 32 million tweets
among which 140 thousand tweets (0.43%) came with geo-locations. In terms of statistical
analysis, Tweets frequency distribution uncovered maximums coinciding with days of the
Presidential debates, and Election Day that saw the global maximum with over three million
tweets (Jahanbakhsh and Moon, 2014). The second analysis focused on Tweet mentions
distribution, analyzing a random sample of 10K tweets. The results showed that Obama
mostly led Romney, also after each presidential debate, Romney led Obama for one or two
days until losing momentum. From the third presidential debate onward, Obama
significantly led on Twitter, proving that ‘ after the last debate public opinions especially the
undecided individuals were formed, making Obama the dominant player in Twitter
discussions’ (Ibid). In terms of hashtag distribution, on debate days, ‘#debate, #obama,
#romney’, were the most popular hashtags, however as Election Day approached ‘#obama’
claimed most popular hashtags in tweets. In the analysis of hashtags, it showed that Obama’s
popularity on Twitter close to Election Day coincided with the Election outcome.

Sentiment analysis results against the randomly sampled 10K tweets during the time frame,
found that Obama led Romney in the number of positive tweets generally. However, there
was close competition between both candidates from October 7th until October 22nd (the last
presidential debate). Furthermore, after October 22nd, Obama led Romney in Twitter space
with a significant gap, similar to statistical analysis data. In analyzing the negative tweets, it
was found that they were larger than positive tweets (eight times more), especially

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dominant during the debates where Romney attacked Obama’s domestic and foreign
policies. Moreover, Obama received more positive tweets closer to Election Day owing to
Obama’s dominance on Twitter.

Geographical sentiment analysis was not wholly successful. However, geo-tweets were
shown to uncover candidates’ popularities. According to the results, there were accurate
predictions for 38 states (76%). The predictor failed for 12 states where Obama was the
winner for three of those states and Romney was winner for the other nine. In the actual
election, Obama won 26 states, while Romney won 24 states (Jahanbakhsh and Moon,
2014). The predictor’s accuracy for Obama was 85% while Romney was 62.5%. The
researchers attribute Romney’s low predictor accuracy as justified by Mislove et al. (2011)
where they found that Twitter users in the US are significantly overrepresented in populous
states and are underrepresented in much of the mid-west states (Jahanbakhsh and Moon,
2014).

Criticisms

Jahanbakhsh and Moon (2014) have addressed the claims by Gayo-Avello (2012) on the
limits of predicting an election using sentiment analysis. Their argument contends that the
number of tweets Gayo-Avello (2012) collected was insufficient to be representative of the
number of actual voters. Although Obama’s lead in Twitter mirrored the Election outcome,
the use of social media to predict an election outcome is not guaranteed.

Firstly, the analysis was conducted post-Election, which questions the validity of predicting
an outcome (Gayo-Avello, 2012). Secondly, prediction failure can be attributed to
inadequate and unequal representation of demographic data, also credibility (spammers,
propagandists, fake and robot accounts in SM - attributed to concerns of data mining and
surveillance). Thirdly, a higher number of tweets does not necessarily imply supporting rate
or sincere popularity.

Fourthly, ‘more comprehensive data analysis methods and data cleaning algorithms to
reduce the noises and errors in SM data need to be developed’ (Jahanbakhsh and Moon,
2014:9). Moreover, Jahanbakhsh and Moon (2014) contend that ‘having a specific
conception of the users’ online identity presentation, and understanding of Twitter users
can help for advanced observations and predictions’. Furthermore, sentiment analysis
subjectivity is not always accurate seen in its failure to predict the 2010 US congressional
elections (Ibid). Finally, the focus on Twitter overlooks data, which would be otherwise
included from other SNS platforms like Facebook.

Deliberations

It has been found that Twitter data is not a guaranteed predictor of an Election outcome,
due to the aforementioned reasons. However, SM does present a useful source of

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information for opinion mining. Furthermore, there generally exist many discrepancies in
the analysis and collection of SM data.

Throughout this essay I have examined the role SM played in the 2008 and 2012 US
Presidential elections, with more focus on 2012 rather. The major findings imply that SM
media is a transformative tool and strategy in electoral campaigns, which can aid in
reaching the young demographic, connecting to constituents, mobilizing and engaging
voters, inciting involvement, crowdfunding and disseminating the campaign message. Its
cost-effective ability is fundamental, and essential in voter information procurement.
Candidates, have to join the social media bandwagon or risk major consequences in losing
support and fading into obscurity.

However, despite the great benefits there exist specific drawbacks in using social media.
Young users predominantly use SM, which causes candidates not to reach or engage with
the older generation who occupy a considerable amount of the voter population. In
addressing the issue of the older demographic, there stands an obvious digital divide with
the older generation who may not have accessibility to the Internet or SNSs, or not
understanding how to use it. This makes the traditional mediums essential in the campaign
process to reach to the demographics still accustomed to retrieving their political news from
traditional outlets.

Another issue lies in privacy and ‘big data’ concerns. Privacy can factor in data accuracy,
as users may not disclose their accurate information, which leads to discrepancies in voter
data accumulation and analysis by campaigns. Not understanding the social media or
utilizing its full potential has been a significant revelation in both elections. In 2008,
Obama hardly used Twitter, which could be attributed to him not understanding the
medium’s potential. Furthermore, social media’s exponential expansion makes it harder to
measure voter attitudes for elections.

To conclude, SM has undoubtedly played a significant role in US elections within the past
decade, transforming the political spectrum and campaigning process. We live in an
information age and as such SM has become a prerequisite to the campaigning and
electoral process. SM provides ‘raw data which can now be monitored, traced, and
analyzed in ways that may assists researchers understanding of various diffusion processes,
human behaviors, and the collective moods around the world’ (Newsam 2012; Perreault
and Ruths 2011; Golder and Macy 2011; Lee et al, 2011). Moreover, politicians are
equipped now more than ever before with quantifiable and qualitative data provided by
SM, which if used efficiently can truly alter the campaign spectrum.

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