Social Media Monitoring in Elections

Social Media
Monitoring in
Elections
available languages:  english  ����� 6, 2018

Social media have become essential infrastructure for public debates and the forming
of political opinion. In established democracies, traditional media still play a
significant role, even if their content is distributed through social media, while in
many new democracies or transition countries, social media have become the
dominant platform of political exchange. In this discussion paper, we lay out the
relevance of social media for elections, and how election observers can begin to
integrate this area into their scrutiny of electoral processes.

Social Media Monitoring

During Elections: Cases and
Best Practice to Inform
Electoral Observation
Missions  
 
 Date

 June 2019

 Authors

 Rafael Schmuziger Goldzweig, Iskra Kirova, Bruno Lupion, Michael Meyer-Resende,

and Susan Morgan

 Program

 Open Society European Policy Institute

Concern over online interference in elections is now widespread—from the fallout of

the Cambridge Analytica scandal to the pernicious effects messaging apps have had in
elections in Kenya or Brazil. Yet regulatory and monitoring efforts have lagged
behind in addressing the challenges of how public opinion can be manipulated online,
and its impact on elections. The phenomenon of online electoral interference is global.
It affects established democracies, countries in transition, and places where freedom
of expression and access to information are tightly controlled.

But fundamental questions of what should be legal and illegal in digital political
communication have yet to be answered in order to extend the rule of electoral law
from the offline to the online. Answering these questions would help determine the
right scope for online election observation, too. This scoping report explains why
social media is one of the elements of a democratic, rule of law–based state that
observer groups should monitor. It aggregates experience from diverse civil society
and nongovernmental initiatives that are innovating in this field, and sets out
questions to guide the development of new mandates for election observers. The
internet and new digital tools are profoundly reshaping political communication and
campaigning. But an independent and authoritative assessment of the impact of these
effects is wanting. Election observation organizations need to adapt their mandate and
methodology in order to remain relevant and protect the integrity of democratic
processes.

MONITORING OF ELECTION CAMPAIGNING ON

SOCIAL MEDIA NETWORKS
 30 JUN , 2020  
Election-Watch.EU contributed to a pilot project to monitor the usage of social media during
electoral campaigns. Democracy Reporting International (DRI) led the project with contributions
from MEMO 98 and the financial support of NEF-Civitates. 

Under this project, five social media monitoring projects were carried out by teams from
Election-Watch.EU (Austria), Lisbon University Institute (ISCTE – IUL) – Media Lab (Portugal),
Political Accountability Foundation (Poland), Global Focus (Romania) and Gong (Croatia) during
elections in the EU between 2019 and 2020.

Sources of information and tools for communication, which lay at the core of political
competition have seen significant changes. Public broadcasters and independent media, in
many EU Member States historically trusted for their impartiality and professional reporting on
electoral processes, are challenged by the generation of an excessive quantity of information,
limited quality checks, and the rapid circulation of news through social media networks and
online platforms. 

Social media has become integral part of our societies, and with it our electoral processes. Most
voters, candidates, political parties and representatives of election management bodies
associate with social media Facebook (founded in 2004), Twitter (founded 2006),
possibly YouTube (founded 2005 and belonging to Google/Alphabet) as well
as Instagram (founded in 2012) and popular among the younger generation. Globally some 50
per cent of the population (almost 3 billion users) are on social networks.

As described in Social Media Monitoring During Elections written by DRI, monitoring social
media is far more complex than monitoring traditional media “with a myriad of actors and
content” ranging from official democratic institutions (e.g. parties, politicians, media) and
unofficial actors (e.g. individuals, political influencers, partisan groups). 

The published report provides recommendations for the various electoral stakeholders and

could serve as reference for advocacy work towards a more transparent and more accountable
electoral campaigning via social media networks.

 Austrian National Council Elections, facebook, Na

https://www.wahlbeobachtung.org/en/monitoring-of-election-campaigning-on-social-media-networks/

https://www.wahlbeobachtung.org/en/monitoring-of-election-campaigning-on-social-media-networks/
 Highlights from the Political Accountability Foundation (PAF)’s social media monitoring
report:
 Facebook (FB) was an important channel for candidates in their communication with voters – its importance during both
2020 Presidential elections was only exacerbated by the pandemic situation which led to the introduction of restrictions on physical
campaigning. Some candidates managed to increase their number of followers more than three times during the campaign
period.
 The level of activity of media outlets on FB is incomparably higher to that of candidates. This might be a result of
the resources available to media, and the wider spectrum of topics media outlets are communicating to users. Out of the total
number of posts published on Facebook, only five percent came from candidates, while 60% from mainstream media outlets and
35% from fringe outlets.

 Restrictions imposed on freedom of movement and freedom of assembly due to COVID-19 pandemic during the first
election (March 26 – May 10) forced presidential candidates to run their campaign mostly via traditional and social media.
With limited access for opposition candidates to public TV and radio, it made social media the main channel for communication with
voters for some of the candidates. Despite the gradual lifting of restrictions during the second presidential campaign,social media
remained an important communication channel. The average daily number of posts per candidate during the second election was
nearly twice as high (7.68) as during the first election (3.83). This could be explained by a much shorter campaign period for the
second election (24 vs 45 days) and the general belief among candidates and voters that the second election will actually take
place.

 The COVID-19 pandemic dominated the presidential campaign during the first election, leaving limited space for
other issues. Very radical drop in interest in COVID-19 issues during the second election (from nearly 18% during the first election to
some 1% in all candidates’ posts) could be a response to the government’s messaging that the epidemic was retreating. The
effectiveness of this message was also reflected in the high turnout during the second election and a very low interest in postal
voting among voters.

 Three candidates, R. Trzaskowski, Sz. Hołownia and K. Bosak, who had the highest number of posts, managed to
significantly increase their group of followers on Facebook during the campaign period (even threefold); however, the example of R.
Biedroń or the incumbent president, A. Duda, who had a high number of posts but did not manage to increase their number of
followers, show that activity on FB is not the only important factor in attracting followers.

 The incumbent president changed his campaign strategy for the second election and undertook more efforts to
increase his visibility on FB. This change did not have a significant impact on his “attractiveness” on FB but overall, his limited ability
to attract followers on social media proved not to be an obstacle for his victory.

 The number of likes per post was significantly correlated with the increase in the number of followers, increasing the
impact on potential voters – R. Trzaskowski, with the highest number of likes per post, 8 333, was also the leader in expanding his
group of followers.

 In general, the candidates’ relatively limited ability to reach wider audiences on Facebook, even during the peak of an
election campaign, shows that to succeed, they will have to diversify their channels of communication beyond social media
to reach other voters. A challenge that has been made even harder because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

 The importance of social media to spread campaign messages to voters seemed to depend on the demographic structure
of the target group of voters – the incumbent president, whose voters are predominantly older generations, did not manage to attract
new supporters through social media, despite his significant activity on FB.

 No significant presence of hate speech or black PR has been noticed. Findings show that posts that could be
labelled as ‘discreditation of political opponents’ were present in less than five percent of total posts, and in less than two percent of
posts from candidates. This was especially noticeable during the 2nd round of the second election, where there was a radical
decrease in the number of posts with this label. The latter is especially interesting given the competitive nature of any second round
of elections – the absence of a rhetoric aimed at shedding a negative light on one’s main opponent could mean that at this last stage
of campaigning the two main candidates were mostly focused on increasing their voter base by appealing with their own electoral
programmes to those voters who do not usually participate in elections, instead of trying to steal voters from their opponent.

 The tone of candidates’ posts was predominantly neutral, with a low share of negative messages. Especially the two final
candidates during the 2nd round of the second election focused more on positive accents. On the other hand, media outlets
presented a very limited share of positive messages, having a visibly higher share of negative accents in posts. This trend
only increased during the second election.

 Media outlets were very active on Facebook during the entire campaign period, publishing radically more posts
than candidates (some media outlets published more posts than all candidates combined). However, the quantity of posts did not
reflect their value and attractiveness for FB users, which can be observed by looking at a lower average number of likes per post,
compared to candidates.
 ‘Fringe’ outlets, were relatively less interested in election related topics, except during the days immediately preceding the
voting day, however, the issue of ‘discreditation of political opponents’ played the most significant role comparing to two remaining
groups of accounts – candidates and mainstream media – almost eight percent of posts discussed this issue.

 There were no visible signs of any coordinated campaign of ‘external factors’ during the election campaign. The
activity of media having links to foreign powers, like ‘Sputnik’ was rather low, with no significant impact on the campaign.

 Almost one third of the top-liked posts were videos which shows that social media audiences are increasingly likely to
engage with audio-visual content, even if consuming such posts takes more time than the consumption of other types of posts.

Lessons Learned with

Social Media
Monitoring
available languages:  english  ������� 30, 2020

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Where do you start if you want to monitor social media during elections? To help get
you started, DRI’s Madeline Brady summarizes lessons learned from five projects that
covered national elections across Europe in 2019 and 2020. We dive into each project,
provide examples for teams deciding on what to monitor, how to assemble a team and
other critical questions.

The lessons learned from these five projects show that further steps are needed from
government, social media companies and research institutions to improve the quality
of monitoring work by civil society. For example, civil society groups require clear
processes to access data from companies and access to additional metrics to
successfully monitor social media.

DRI is also working on other tools to address the challenges faced by social media
monitoring teams, which will be available in July 2020.
This publication was made possible by the five projects carried out by
ElectionWatch.EU (Austria), the ISCTE-Media Lab (Portugal), the Political
Accountability Foundation (Poland), Global Focus (Romania) and Gong (Croatia),
with contributions from MEMO 98 and funding from NEF-Civitates.