Politicizing the Twitterverse

Social media was as important as traditional media in Canada's recent election.

Social media featured prominently in Canada’s recent federal election, as evidenced by 1.4 million election-related tweets – or an average of 43,750 tweets per day – according to our software. Over 470 candidates were active on Twitter, and they sent out an average of 82 Twitter messages per day. Over 460 candidates had Facebook pages, and 230 posted at least three blog entries during the election. All this is in stark contrast to the social-media activity in the last election (in 2008), which was … well, let’s just say that, statistically, it wasn’t worth bothering to look at.

Canada’s 41st federal election – or #elxn41, for those following it on Twitter – was certainly a breakout election in terms of social-media usage by both political parties and citizens. But the biggest questions are: 1) Did social media result in a greater youth turnout, and 2) did the use of social media impact the stunning results that we saw? The answer to both of those questions is yes. And no. Perhaps a better response would be, “We just can’t quite say either way.” Sounds, uhm, political, doesn’t it?

Definitive answers when it comes to social-media analysis are too often difficult to come by. In my view – as one who regularly researches and analyzes social-media usage – politics intersects with social media in the areas of “political behaviour” and “political culture,” because that is where it naturally fits in the politics of a democracy such as Canada’s.

That social media played a vital role in the recent election is of little doubt. When it comes to the popular vote, keep in mind that more than 60 per cent of Canadians did not vote for the Harper Conservatives. Then there’s the broad and surprising sweep of the NDP’s “orange crush” in Quebec. There is even the reality that there are more Tory seats in Ontario than in Western Canada. Eastern Canada stayed fairly red.

When we overlaid social-media usage (the volume of tweets, YouTube videos, Facebook fan pages, and blog postings with news-media comments) over an election map, we found some interesting trends. It appeared that more left-wing Canadians were inclined to use social media than right-wing Canadians, and that the electoral districts with the highest use of social-media tools had a higher percentage of Liberal and NDP voters than ridings with low social-media usage. Are Conservatives afraid of social media? We’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

But then, isn’t social media all about the youth vote? Actually, no. Youth certainly made very good use of social media during the recent election, but, as we looked at all the data, we found that the average age of Canadian citizens participating in social media is actually 38. The average age of Twitter users in Canada is 39, and that of Facebook users is 43. Political parties in Canada tend to view social media as the domain of those under 30, and that is an unreliable demographic for guaranteeing votes. The reasoning for this is that once you are over 30, you are far more predictable in your habits. At that point in your life, you are more likely to own a home, have at least one child, and have aging parents. That means you likely have mortgage payments and a car, which, in turn, translate into a predictable set of concerns pertaining to your lifestyle. Therefore, parties tend to focus on the concerns relative to the +30 demographic, because they are relatively stable and easy to pinpoint.