Twindex: is this the future of political polling?
hu.socialdaily.com |
With the current US presidential campaigns
in full flow, it has become clear how significant a role social media now
plays. Polls have long played an essential part in gauging candidates’
popularity but the development of the ‘Twindex’ begs the question if these will
ever be redundant?
Brought to life by data analysis
company Topsy, in conjunction with polling firms North Star Opinion Research
and The Mellman Group, the Twindex will provide a daily update of how the
candidates are polling. Each day at 8pm EST, the Twindex will be updated,
scoring the candidates from 1-100 as a percentile, Topsy explains. So in the
present situation, Obama has a relatively neutral score (44) whilst Romney, the
Republican presumptive nominee, is sitting at the more negative end of the
scale (26). The tweets taken into account include those that directly refer to
the candidate’s surname or their Twitter handle, but omit the use of hashtags
and other ways of referring to the candidates.
Whilst the Twindex cannot be considered
totally representative, only ‘15% of online adults are on Twitter (Feb 2012)’, it
does help highlight the current overall trends in opinion of the candidates. When
shown in comparison to the Gallup polls, the Twindex does generally reflect a
similar view. Most notably with this, one can see Obama’s ratings universally shoot
upwards following the death of Osama Bin Laden in May 2011. The daily updates of Twindex can also highlight
the role of smaller scale events in their favourability. For instance, Twitter
Government (@gov) has recently posted that Michael Phelps has suggested ‘#olympics
gold-medal US gymnasts helped drive @BarackObama's
+10 #twindex gain’.
So will the Twindex ever eclipse the
need for traditional polls? Quite simply it seems the answer is no. Instead, if
the two systems were to be used together, a more comprehensive view of public
opinion would be possible. With traditional polls, a range of questions can be
asked in a conversational, public style. Conversely, with the Twindex, insight
can be gained into more private views, those usually limited to ‘coffee shops and water coolers’, but with lesser range. The head of government, news and
social innovation at Twitter, Adam Sharp, views this combination as being the
future of the Twindex. Still, one cannot totally rule out the possibility of
polls exclusively utilising social media at some point. Voters could be asked
to voice their opinions through social media on a range of topics and the
results of this then collated into a chart much like what the Twindex uses. This
would avoid any false answers and perhaps give a more realistic result. It is
unknown where this creation could potentially take political polling but there are
definitely possibilities for change.
What the Twindex really shows us is
the ever-increasing role social media plays in politics. With both candidates
surpassing previous budgets on their digital campaigns and more people turning
to social media, it is understandable how this is the case. Political Science
professor Colin Moore has highlighted that ‘it allows candidates to… tailor
their messages to specific demographics’. Furthermore, it can be important with
those crucial undecided and 'swing' voters. This informative and influential role social
media plays has the capacity to directly contact with voters, arguably more closely
than television or other forms of media. Ultimately, social media is slowly finding
its form in the political realm and this trend undeniably has the power to
expand.
Josh Bennett, Content Writer
@JoshAtSMF
Twindex: is this the future of political polling?
Reviewed by Mili and Paul
on
Thursday, August 02, 2012
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