Social Media Impact on Election: Analysis on 2015 UK General Election

(Comparison with the US)

Research paper submitted for

World Political Information class

By

Tselmeg Chuluunbaatar

Tsogtbaatar Baatartsogt

Abstract:

The purpose of this research is to analyze through literature review, internet monitoring reports

and research results already available to determine the impact of social media use on election

and whether it successfully predicts election result. In order to answer the questions, this paper

will compare the usage of social media during the election time in both United States and

United Kingdom. More specifically, concentrating on the UK General Election 2015, and

comparing with 2008 and 2012 US presidential election, and 2010 UK and. In comparison of

the election we are hoping to find correlation between the tweet mentions, followers, number

of fans on facebook pages, video uploads, comments etc with the result of the election and

whether it helped to determine the outcome. For this research, most used three social media

platforms with over 1 billion users; Facebook, Youtube and Twitter data were studied in order

to analyze the impact on election campaign, moreover the result. The social media prediction

hypothesis has been not supported but the impact over the election process as engaging younger

citizen, more information is inevitable.

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Introduction

Social media has become a ubiquitous part of daily life not simply service that helps connect

people through cyberspace, it has changed the way we communicate, gather and share

information, and given rise to a connected global society even more how politics proceed and

participatory role of people for politics. Traditional mass media idea of the source-message-

channel-receiver (SMCR) model, basically one-way communication where a message is

encoded with a source, transmitted through a given channel, and is decoded and distributed

through the receiver with only limited opportunity for feedback. However, this has changed

with the social media platform and creation of Web 2.0 where exchange of user-generated

content in real time is possible. Social media is monitored, and SNS marketing is shaping the

world, moreover the matter of knowing public opinion and how the mass view the reality is

important. In recent years with its rapid growth, using social media for political discourse is

becoming common practice, especially around election time. Microblogging services such as

Twitter and social network sites (Facebook) are believed to have the potential for increasing

political participation. Even though the internet is still not the only means of winning an

election. The strategic importance of the internet has been widely recognized by both

politicians and the general public thus without a wide range of online activities and being

recognizably present on the most important social media platforms, some decisive votes may

be lost.

Social media are changing the way politicians communicate with their electorate. Their

monologue turned into a dialogue with potential voters. Each social media platform enables a

different way of engaging the audience, which is one of the primary goals of all social media

activities. To recap, the level of users engagement shows whether a politician successes in

provoking a reaction from the part of the audience which may constitute a carrier of viral

content.

In 2008, Barack Obama successfully used the social media platform for the bid of US

Presidential Election through his online strategy that used the new media which made it to be

revolutionary in online campaigning and finance than any other prior politicians who used the

internet. Since the victory of Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 presidential election, the

importance of online campaigning has increased and social media has been a high priority for

election analysts.

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UK is one of the highest internet penetrated nation with high number of active social media

users. It has been debatable between studies whether the general election in 2005, 2010 or 2015

has been the first social internet elections. Some have considered the 2010 to be the first internet

election, as during the 2005 election, the social media sites were not highly penetrated as the

United States. While some scholars have concluded it to be failure as a media elections.

But when talking about social media election, it is important whether if it is that something

happen online which influenced voters and changed the course of the campaign or the overall

effect the social media campaign has over the result. To see whether the successful online

strategy has been rooted in recent elections in UK, research question and hypotheses has been

developed.

RQ1: Have social media data predicted the election?

Hypothesis1: Social media has predicted the UK General Election 2015 result

Hypothesis2: Social medias impact on election will grow in the future

In order to answer the research question provided above and the hypotheses, this research will

analyze the result of the UK General Election held on 7 May, 2015. Data collected by Sotrender

were used for this study, which analyzed the data from official Facebook Pages, Twitter profiles

and YouTube channels of the parties participating in the UK General Election, which are the

five biggest UK political parties (The Labour Party, Green Party of England and Wales, The

Conservatives, UK Independence Party, Liberal Democrats and Scottish National Party).

Analyzing the data in accordance with the final result of the election will determine whether

social media has impact over the votes. Also, the social media impact change since the 2010

general election. We will seek to answer whether UK successfully engage in developing more

sophisticated digital strategies as the US have done?

United States

The United States Presidential Election is held every four years, on Election Day- the Tuesday

between November 2-8 coinciding with the general elections of various other federal, states

and local races. It is an indirect voting in which the citizens cast ballots for a slate of members

of the US Electoral College, where they in turn directly elect the President as well the Vice

President.

US Presidential Election 2008

US elections have always been trend-setters regarding instruments and strategies. The 2008

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Presidential Election has been a groundbreaking one. Not just for the reason Barack Obama as

the first African American president to be elected but also the first American elections to

effectively use social media as a major campaign strategy. Metrics such as his number of fans

on Facebook, his number of followers on Twitter, the number of videos on his YouTube channel

and the number of views for these videos, as well as the large community of bloggers under

the umbrella of his own social network mybarackobama.com, all were interpreted as numbers

which indicated the high level of interaction from volunteers and voters with his political

message, which ultimately contributed to his election

In the general election battle, Obamas campaign has remained deeply active in the social

networking world and has maintained dominance over McCain. McCain has stepped up his

presence in the social networking world, but there is still had a long gap. (Figure 1)

A look at numbers from the day before the general election indicated that the Obama campaign

was more active with social media than the McCain campaign. On Facebook, Obama had

2,379,102 supporters. McCain had 620,359. On Twitter, Obama had 112,474 followers to

McCains 4,603. On YouTube, there were more than 18 million channel views for Obama,

compared to just 2 million channel views for McCain. As some observers have since noted, the

cost of purchasing that kind of air time would have taxed the finances of any campaign, even

one as well-funded as Obamas. In other words, social media can function as a highly relevant

Obamas use of social media including Twitter also allowed him to increase voter

turnout among young people, a voting group notorious for low-turnout. According to the U.S.

Census Bureau an estimated,22 million young Americans under the age of 30 voted in the

2008 presidential election, two million more voters than in the 2004. The youth voter turnout

rose to 51 percent, an increase of two percentage points from 2004.1

The techniques that were most significant to enable the Obama 08 campaign to translate online

activity to on-the-ground activity included: targeted messages facilitated by social media and

Web 2.0 tools, Web-facilitated hosted meetings, the mobilization of the Obama network of

supporters, promoting active civic engagement, enabling peer-to-peer political campaigning,

educating the public on issues and organizational strategies, enabling voters to make informed

decisions, mobilizing the ground game, Web-facilitated canvassing and phoning, and raising

1Wortham .J. The Presidential Campaign on Social Media. New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/10/08/technology/campaign-social-media.html?_r=0

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money.

Year Presidential

Candidate

Party Electoral

votes

Twitter

followers

Facebook

supporters

Youtube

views

2008 Barack

Obama

Democratic 365 112,474 2,379,102 18million

John

McCain

Republican 173 4,603 620, 359 2million

Table 1: 2008 US Presidential Election candidates data

Source: Pew Research

US Presidential Election 2012

Obamas 2012 Presidential campaign forged ahead in using all facets of social media including

the social news website Reddit leaving the Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney

badly outmatched Obama campaign posted nearly four times as much content as the Romney

campaign and was active on nearly twice as many platforms. (Figure 2.1; 2.2) . The Obama

campaign spent $47 million on digital campaigning compared to $4.7 million by the Romney

campaign. A New York Times interactive from October of 2012 clearly showed the extent to

the gap between the candidates when it came to digital campaigning. Obama had 20 million

Twitter followers to Romneys 1.2 million, 29 million Facebook Likes to 7.9 million

Facebook Likes for Romney. Barack Obama had a majority win over his opponents in the

presidential election in 2008 and 2012. Without a doubt social media campaigning has played

an important role in the final result.

Obama dominated the social media space because his team got how networks work. The real

power of social media is not in the number of posts or Tweets but in user engagement measured

by content spreadability. For example, Obama logged twice as many Facebook Likes and

nearly 20 times as many re-tweets as Romney.

According to a study conducted by the George Washington University, "The 2012 Social

Media Election Survey: Key Lessons to Inform Decision-Making in Politics & Business,

overall, 29 percent of the respondents have said social media was moderately to extremely

influential in their opinions of the candidates and issues. Nearly two-thirds (63 percent) said

the quality of information about the candidates and issues on social media was the same or

better than that from traditional media. Approximately 40 percent participated in a political

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discussion with others in their social networks and 28 percent said they displayed their political

affiliation on their networks. 2

Year Presidential

Candidate Party

Electoral

votes

Twitter

followers

Facebook

likes

2012

Barack

Obama Democratic 332 20million 29million

Mitt

Romney Republican 206 1.2million 7.9million

Table 2: 2012 US Presidential Election candidates data

Source: Per Research

UK

United Kingdom general elections are held every five years following the Fixed-term

Parliaments Act 2011, or the only way that an early election can be called is in a vote by a

majority of the House. All the Members of Parliament (MPs) forming the House of Commons

of the Parliament of the United Kingdom are elected. The general election was held on 6 May

2010 and 7 May 2015 to elect the 56th Parliament of the United Kingdom.

2010 General Election

According to the Internet World Stat, UK had 51.4million active internet users. During the

2010 General Election, there were high hopes that new forms of personal expression through

blogs and social networks would widen participation and the range of democratic voices.

Ironically, the biggest media story of the 2010 election ended up being a television event: a set

piece leadership debate which turned the campaign on its head with the internet seen as

something of a sideshow. Deloitte research says, television debates changed the voting

intentions of a million people, but social media merely "complemented and amplified". For

the sceptics, this was proof that old media still called the shots and that the claims of the digital

evangelists were overblown. In all, TV was still a crucial technology for the 2010 campaign.

In 2010, the election had much attention focused on how politicians, commentators and voters

would respond to ground-breaking digital campaigns. More than 60 percent of all UK residents

are participating in the media world, creating an instant platform for observation and debate.

The average age of Facebook users was 38 and Twitter users was 39.

A YouGov poll commission by Orange found that 57% had found out information about the

2 The 2012 Social Media Election Survey: Key Lessons to Inform Decision-Making in Politics & Business, The

George Washington University-The Graduate School of Political Management, January 2014.

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election through online means. A particular finding was how many young people interacted

with that material stating at least 24% of the 18-24 year old group had left comments on

social media sites about the election3

The national parties have set up a website dedicated to members/supporters emails and social

network sites to organize local campaigns, raise money and recruit volunteers. Possibly

inspired by the hugely successful MyBarackObama.com. Barack Obama understood that you

could use the Web to lower the cost of building a political brand, create a sense of connection

and engagement, and dispense with the command and control method of governing to allow

people to self-organize to do the work.4

Restrictions to political advertising on polling day do not apply online as they do in TV, radio

or print. According to Experian Hitwise, which tracks online traffic, the Conservative

Party was the most successful in driving traffic to its core political website. (Figure 3)

In total, 200,000 people signed up to the combined Facebook fan pages for David Cameron

and the Conservative Party, where there were links to official party videos or information on

the main website. Labour party was able to attract over 65,564 fans while Liberal with more

97,759 fans on their Facebook page.

According to the survey, Facebook dominated the media behavior of the 18-24 age group, with

an emphatic 97% saying they used the site during the election. The same age group used the

web more than any other source of news 89%, compared with 81% for TV and 59% for

newspapers.

According to the Democracy UK on Facebook, on 5th of May-with a day left to the election;

Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats was the winner of a mock election held on Facebook,

with 42 percent of the vote. David Cameron of the Conservative Party came second with 31

percent, while Gordon Brown of the Labour Party finished in third with 27 percent.5 The

Democracy UK page was launched in order to let people engage in debate, having more than

160,000 people connected to it. Report by the Reuters Institute for the Study of

3 http://www.nma.co.uk/news/quarter-of-18-24-year-olds-discuss-election-via-social-networks/3013083.article

4 New York Times, 9 November, 2008

5 https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook/democracy-in-the-uk-results-of-the-social-media-

election/387348402130

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Journalism illustrates just how much impact social media had on the election, and particularly

how the engagement of younger voters may have influenced the outcome.

According to Echo Research, has found that almost half of the population has gone online to

get information about the parties and politicians concluding that the role of internet in politics

is growing as it has become the leading source of information about election.

Parties Facebook

page fans

Twitter

followers

Tweets Youtube

channel

views

Market

share of the

visits to

main party

websites

Seats

Conservatives 114,658 39,321 3,000 590,396 36% 307

Labour 65,564 21,152 2,374 297,923 33% 258

Liberal Democrat 97,759 23,379 1,500 142,851 31% 57

Table 3: Social media use during the GE 2010 UK.

Source: Lessons from election 2010: local politics and social media

Despite the large numbers and the steady growth of social and personal media in the UK, most

people continued to receive their news in this election through mainstream media organizations.

The TV debates were watched by up to 10 million people, while newspaper and broadcaster

websites reported record usage. In total, over 40 million adults accessed the BBCs election

news and information each week on TV, radio and online.

However, the biggest turnaround of the 2010 election was not through social media campaign

effort but a leadership debate aired on television changed the voting intention of more than

million people according to a survey report by the consultancy firm Deloitte, and the internet

was only seen as a complementary something of a sideshow even though there has been more

than 1million tweets after the debate. The report confirms the indications that social media had

a limited impact on the overall outcome, despite the campaign being hyped as the digital

election which the debate altering the voting behavior of more than 4 per cent of the voting

population.

UK General Election 2015

UK has ranked higher than most part of the world, specifically the USA and global average in

terms of internet usage penetration and social media usage.

According to the Wearesocialsg6 media agency research conducted in early 2015, Digital,

6 Wearesocial is a global media agency which combines an innate understanding of social media with

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social & Mobile in 2015, UK ranked fourth with 89% much higher than the global average of

42% internet usage by national penetration and surpassing USA with 87%. This translates into

roughly 57.3million active users in the UK.

For social media use, UK scored 59% on active accounts on the top social network compared

to the population, while the global average is 29%. The social media use has grown 6% from

the previous year same time. The 38 million UK social media users spend average of 2.2 hours

using social media each day. However, the average daily television viewing time among

internet users is 3hours 05minutes surpassing the average of the social media usage.

With the steady growth of internet user and social media users, it is obvious that people are

consuming more information and affecting the decision.

Political advertising on television and radio is banned in the UK. But during the 2015 general

election campaign, parties are placing paid-for political adverts and campaign videos on social

media to attract a potential audience of millions. According to Sotrender7, the most intense

campaign is conducted by the Labour Party, the main opposition party in the Parliament.

Sotrender analyzed the data collected from official Facebook Pages, Twitter profiles and

YouTube channels of the parties participating in the UK General Election 2015.

The Conservatives have over 400 thousand fans and their Facebook site is the biggest among

all United Kingdom political parties. Liberal Democrats with 109 thousand fans place 6th and

have the smallest Facebook Page in our ranking. Her Majestys Loyal Opposition - Labour

Party - ranks 3rd in biggest Facebook Pages with 241 thousand fans. Labour party has been the

most active party on Facebook. Within the analyzed period from March 1 to April 20, they

have had over 434 posts which is twice as more than The Conservatives and while Liberal

Democrats only had 77 posts.

Video communication has become one of the important tool to promote and influence the voters

for politicians and parties. UKIP had the most followers on YouTube with over 22 thousand

subscribers, but in the analyzed period their videos had the smallest number of views. SNP had

the number of subscribers hidden. Conservatives had over 479 thousand views to its 45 video

uploads, while the Labour party had 422 views to its 35 videos.

digital, PR, and marketing skills.

7 Sotrender is a social media analytics tool, which enables optimization of marketing activities carried

out on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as well as fast reporting on their results.

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Liberal Democrat have been the most active on Twitter with over 24hundred tweets and 200

thousand followers to its official twitter accounts. Between April 4 and May 4 Labour party

managed to get over 109 thousand mentions according to Twitter data. Much of the

Conservative's success comes from David Cameron's 998,000 Twitter followers.

Parties Facebook

page fan

Facebook

posts

Most

engaged

'fans'-

average

like per

post

Youtube

channel

subscribers

Youtube

video

upload

Youtube

video

views

Twitter

account

followers

Tweets Activities

or

parties'

twitter

account

Seats

Conservatives 401,857 189 2500 13,091 45 479,856 150,143 323 142,683 331

Labour 241,040 434 1200 10,251 35 422,503 200,946 1,422 276,386 232

Liberal

Democrat

109,457 77 250 4,275 32 373,958 91,292 2,424 107,783 8

UKIP 382,025 155 7000 22,874 9 61,369 95,780 1,019 221,460 1

SNP 193,843 205 2000 0 20 64,399 87,038 976 215,555 56

Table 4: Social media use among national parties during GE 2015 (March1-April20)

Source: Sotrender, PA

Limitation

This research includes election from 2008 to 2015 including two nations. Due to this fact, data

has been collected from several different sources. For the credibility, research has been chiefly

reliant on data retrieved from Pew Research, Sotrender, Wearesocial, and statistics from official

Youtube, Twitter and Facebook data centers. As the main subject of our study, the 2015 UK

General Election is relatively a recent event which lack academic opinion where mostly relied

on newspaper commentaries and analysis.

Both election systems in two countries are different in nature and system, thus mentioned

features has not been taken into account for the analysis. Only the number of fans on Facebook,

likes, number of followers on Twitter, the number of videos on YouTube channel and the

number of views for the uploaded videos for a given time has been analyzed. Moreover, the

tone of the message and feedback, internet user behavior also has been taken out. Further

research may study extensively.

Analysis has been conducted only on national parties official social media accounts whereas

US election analysis has been done on politicians social media accounts. US presidential

election has been selected for comparison for its success for this research. Further research may

include more similar cases of US congressional election with UK General Election. However,

identical case with similar condition is unlikely as two countries have its differences.

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Findings

The data provided for the US presidential election has high correlation as the winner (Barack

Obama) had significantly higher social media engagement than his opponent in both elections

since 2008 (see Table 1&2). However, the data for UK General Election has been different

depending on the social network platform. Overall Conservatives and Labour party have been

most engaging during the election campaign period, but UKIP has been doing better in

Facebook than the other gaining more than 7 thousand likes per post with second highest

number of fans on its page, while Labour leading the Twitter. Compared to the data and the

seats won through the 2015 election we can conclude that the Hypothesis1 Social media has

predicted the UK General Election 2015 result has been nullified partially. Conservatives

growth over the past five years has been slower than the other parties, while the fast growth of

the online fans and supporters for the other parties did not secure more seats for the election.

Steady growth of the social media metrics over the years have proved to have more impact on

the election supporting the hypothesis 2 Social medias impact on election will grow in the

future. However this does not mean particularly turning the voting behaviors of people but

drawing more information, process and voting for the election.

Conclusion

Social media metrics for the national parties has not predicted the outcome of the election result

for 2015 UK General Election, whereas television remained to be the mainstream information

source and influence for the audience in terms of voting intentions and its shifts in both election

in 2010 and 2015. Social media impact election in both election in two countries can be

analyzed as engaging more people by providing open source information for more younger

population, rather than turning the voting significantly.

The use of social media toolstext messaging, e-mail, photo sharing, social networking, and

the likedoes not have a single preordained outcome. Therefore, attempts to outline their

effects on political action are too often reduced to dueling anecdotes. There is no settled

consensus on what strategies work online and what does not, as there is with other political

tools such as polling and focus groups. The spending on the campaign or the fine details of

party social media strategy are still hard to come by and hard to measure. It is hard to say

whether it has been a social media election or not without a solid proof as we may never know

how influential social media was in shifting the outcome of elections. Elections are one-time

event where we cannot take out social media and rerun it.

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Growing influence and ubiquity, specifically among younger voters, cannot be ignored.

Newman cites one of the more modest estimates, by Mori, that the voting turnout of 18- to 24-

year-olds increased by 7%, above the national average of 5%. Political parties know today

more and more voters especially in the apathetic 18-25-year-olds consume media

exclusively online. Much of this media is filtered through websites like Twitter, the micro-

blogging platform, Facebook, the social network, or YouTube, the video site.

Online campaigning is undoubtedly becoming major impact on elections throughout the world.

Particularly, social media campaigns that uses social network services such as Twitter and

Facebook is now being used by most of the world in politics. It cannot be denied, but it also

isnt the most important aspect of election. However comparing the usage of SNS in politics

between United Kingdom and United States of America differs and interesting results can be

seen.

In case of UK, it has a long tradition of aristocracy in governing the nation, therefore using the

new media or technological advancement is less likely to highly impact the election results, as

the UK citizens and most people of European nations do not perceive new media on highly

dependent basis, in terms of political election.

On the other hand, the USA uses the new media strategically in elections to take advantage

because of the diversity in culture, ethnicity, and the age group of online users. In the 60s when

mass media was reaching to a new level, President J.F. Kennedy is the first one to successfully

use television campaign, which was the new media of its time. Same goes for 2008 election for

Barrack Obama, when the Internet marketing campaign was undeniably used. These new media

at its earlier life cycle shows that the successful leaders of Americans all used it as a tool to win

the vote of thousands. The citizens of the USA are much more adoptable in newer technology.

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Appendix

Figure 1: The Social Networking sites usage

among candidates during the 2008 Presidential

Elections

Source: Pew Research

Figure 2.1: Social Media Response among candidates

during 2012 US Presidential Election

Source: Pew Research

Figure 2.2: Digital Activity among

candidates during 2012 US Presidential

Election

Source: Pew Research

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Figure 3: Downstream referrals

from Google UK to three political

party websites 10 April15

May. Left axis shows percentage of

overall UK internet reach.

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News articles:

BBC News. What makes a social media election? By: Mike Wendling. 6 May 2015 (http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-32590917)

The Guardian. 2010: The first social media election. By Charles Arthur. 04 May 2010.

(http://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/apr/30/social-media-election-2010)

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