English language Twitter traffic has been getting a lot of attention in the election campaign. I did a cursory look at the French conversation a few days ago. So the Canadian Press and I worked together to dig a little deeper for a piece that was named Two Twitter solitudes in federal election. I thought I’d provide some more detail and a few graphs and charts to help visualize the findings.
The findings are based on data gathered using Sysomos MAP at 7amET, today.
Hashtags #cdnpoli and #elxn41 have received a lot of attention as the more popular of all hashtags used in the election conversation. As pointed out by Claude Boucher, other hashtags were adopted by the French community in order get noticed among the volumes of English traffic. As it turns out, the English conversation adopted them, too. To make sure I capture everything, I’ve expanded the scope of my ongoing research to include all of the tags.
For your reference, the tags I’m following are #cdnpoli, #elxn41, #cv11, #cdescom, #election2011, #elections2011, #fed2011 and #federal2011. It’s possible this list may grow during the election.
In French tweets, #fed2011 and #federal2011 combined as the most popular (332 tweets), with #election2011 and #elections2011 combining for second place (203). We don’t actually see an appearance of #elxn41 until third place (144). #cdnpoli ranks fifth (57) and the combined use of #cdnpoli and #elxn41 comes in last (21).
UPDATE: French tweets account for a tiny fraction of the conversation; about 2 per cent overall (English 27,215, French 635).
AMPLIFICATION…
Twitter is acting more as an amplifier than a conversation tool in the overall discussion at this time. Fresh content accounts for just shy of 40 per cent of Twitter traffic and replies just shy of 13 per cent. Retweets (the amplifier) is nearly 48 per cent of all Twitter traffic.
…vs. CONVERSATION
The French language community is more conversational. While fresh content is on par with the overall traffic (38 per cent), the amplifier effect among the French community is reduced by increased engagement as shown by a greater proportion of replies (nearly 22 per cent, with only 40 per cent retweets).
A DIFFERENCE IN BUZZ
The overall conversation is becoming more segregated by themes. LPC is as the hub of a majority of the chatter, though other webs of discussion have formed. By volume, Harper is not tied to specific issues discussions including tax and coalition. BRK is gaining traction because @electionbrk has been tweeting like mad. Given the amount of content, the composition of the tweets and the hours at which they’re published, I think it’s fair to be suspicious the account is run by a bot.
Coalition is still part of the discourse. Tax appeared during the day, yesterday.
The French BuzzGraph shows concern for the deficit and families, terms that haven’t ranked in the overall conversation.
Man… there is just so much going on in the digital world of this election. I have a stack of blog post and research ideas. If there are any questions you think we (the Canadian Press and I) should consider answering, please leave them in the comments section of this post.
By the way, I’ll be on Talk Radio 980 CJME (Regina) with Jerry Steen at 8:45amET tomorrow and News Talk Radio 650 CKOM (Saskatoon) at 9:15am.
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