US Election Monitor 2008

PolitCamp Graz30. Mai 2008

Hermann SternGraz University of TechnologyKnowledge Management Institute

Walter RafelsbergerMODUL University ViennaDepartment of New Media TechnologyKnowledge Management Institute

hermann.stern@tugraz.at

Department of New Media Technology

walter.rafelsberger@modul.ac.at

IntroductionIntroduction

• US Election Monitor 2008US Election Monitor 2008• Analyzing Trends in Political Coverage of Online Media • http://www.ecoresearch.net/election2008

• Use Case of the IDIOM ProjectI f i Diff i I i O li M di• Information Diffusion across Interactive Online Media

• http://www.idiom.at

• Part of the ECOresearch Network• http://www.ecoresearch.net

Behind Behind thethe Scenes (1/2)Scenes (1/2)( )( )

• Weekly Snapshots of global Web coverageWeekly Snapshots of global Web coverage

• List of Web sites in different SamplesList of Web sites in different Samples• US• Canada• UK• Australia and New Zealand• NGOs• Fortune1000• 1000 popular blogs on political issues1000 popular blogs on political issues

Behind Behind thethe Scenes (2/2)Scenes (2/2)( )( )

• More than 800 000 documents a weekMore than 800,000 documents a week• Monday: data collection• Wednesday: publication of new resultsWednesday: publication of new results

• Text Pre-Processing• Text Pre-Processing

• Word Frequencies => Attention• Word Frequencies => Attention• Semantic Orientation => Sentiment• Keyword Analysis => Keywords• Keyword Analysis => Keywords

Interactive ChartsInteractive Charts

CandidateCandidate DetailsDetails

User PollsUser Polls

• Only one vote a day allowed (IP check)Only one vote a day allowed (IP check)

Traffic Traffic StatisticsStatistics

Attention V.S. SentimentAttention V.S. Sentiment

Obama Public Opinion V.S. SentimentObama Public Opinion V.S. Sentimentpp

Obama Attention V.S. SentimentObama Attention V.S. Sentiment

Future WorkFuture Work

• Candidate quotesCandidate quotes• User votes on geographic map

• Phase II: post primaries

Social Media ApplicationsSocial Media Applicationspppp

• Games with a Purpose“„Games with a Purpose• Vote for a Candidate• Sentiment Quiz

• Goals• Gather data for Social Network Analysis• Analyze Viral Dissemination Effects• Sentiment Detection and Evaluation • Sentiment Detection and Evaluation

via Crowdsourcing• Investigate Hostile Media Effect

Social Media ApplicationsSocial Media Applicationspppp

• Why Facebook et al?Why Facebook et al?

• Building a new community / user base is not our taskBuilding a new community / user base is not our task

• Social Platforms with APIs• Environment the user is familiar with• Still a rich user experience• Viral effects help spreading the application in a • Viral effects help spreading the application in a

user`s network with limited marketing resources• Large user base

Facebook Voting ApplicationFacebook Voting Applicationg ppg pp

• Users vote weekly for their yprefered candidate and give their opinion whether he / she will win.

• Privacy controls

V l f d • Viral notifications and reminders spread across a user`s network.

• Results page offers statistics from a user`s network.

• Opt-In to let us access the gathered data for further analysis.y

Facebook Sentiment QuizFacebook Sentiment Quiz

„Game with a purpose“p p

• Players have to decide whether a sentence has a positive or negative meaning.

• The choices of a player get matched with those from other playersother players.

• Players get points for matches and may reach higher levels, making the higher levels, making the game more difficult with longer sentences and lower sentiment.

• Uses proven game mechanics to motivate players.

SOC Framework as BackendSOC Framework as Backend

Data

• PHP based framework• Generic wrapper for Social

Data

Generic wrapper for Social Platforms to act on a shared data space

• Allows logging of user activity

SOC Framework

in a social network

Others

Future WorkFuture Work

• Launch Facebook Applications Launch Facebook Applications • currently Private Beta

• Port Applications to other platforms

• Possible future scenario:Crowdsourcing Platform gfor Scientific Applications