140 characters to victory?: Using Twitter to predict the UK 2015 General Election

Burnap, Peter ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0396-633X, Gibson, Rachel, Sloan, Luke ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9458-9332, Southern, Rosalynd and Williams, Matthew Leighton ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2566-6063 2016. 140 characters to victory?: Using Twitter to predict the UK 2015 General Election. Electoral Studies 41 , pp. 230-233. 10.1016/j.electstud.2015.11.017

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

This paper uses Twitter data to forecast the outcome of the 2015 UK General Election. While a number of empirical studies to date have demonstrated striking levels of accuracy in estimating election results using this new data source, there have been no genuine i.e. pre-election forecasts issued to date. Furthermore there have been widely varying methods and models employed with seemingly little agreement on the core criteria required for an accurate estimate. We attempt to address this deficit with our ‘baseline’ model of prediction that incorporates sentiment analysis and prior party support to generate a true forecast of parliament seat allocation. Our results indicate a hung parliament with Labour holding the majority of seats.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Computer Science & Informatics Social Sciences (Includes Criminology and Education)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HM Sociology J Political Science > JN Political institutions (Europe) > JN101 Great Britain
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Election; Forecasting; Twitter; Sentiment analysis
Publisher:	Elsevier
ISSN:	0261-3794
Last Modified:	17 Nov 2022 13:40
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/83773

Citation Data

Cited 122 times in Scopus. View in Scopus. Powered By Scopus® Data

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item