Problem
The Reuters Institute wanted to better understand the way political actors use Twitter during elections.
Solution
We developed novel statistics for engagement effectiveness and discovered who was better and how they are different.
Description
Nobody doubts the importance of Twitter in influencing the outcome of elections. Understanding exactly how that influence is exerted, and by whom, is the question that the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University wanted to answer. They approached the Center for help in both collecting tens of millions of tweets during elections around the world, as well as analysing the content and interactions of the users. Together, we developed novel statistical methods for measuring engagement effectiveness of individuals and parties and mapped the topics of conversation into several dimensions to examine similarity and differences between parties.
