Queensland Election Social Index to track social media campaign as it happens

Researchers from QUT's Social Media Research Group (SMRG) are ramping up their analysis of social media activities surrounding the Queensland state election campaign this year, by drawing on cutting-edge social media analytics technologies developed at QUT.

SMRG leader Professor Axel Bruns said, the Queensland Election Social Index (QESI) provides a real-time overview of key social media trends surrounding the social media campaign, parties, and candidates, and shows a breakdown of attention across the parties and the two major candidates.

"We have provided detailed social media campaign analysis in recent campaigns including the 2012 Queensland and 2013 federal elections, but this is the first time we're able to offer detailed and continuously updated election trends," Professor Bruns said.

"This offers live insights into the changing fortunes of the various parties over the course of the campaign, and helps pinpoint the impact of specific campaign events, policy releases, controversies and gaffes.

"And we offer this as ready-made, embeddable graphs that can be used by Websites and news organisations."

QESI builds on the Hypometer, a commercial-grade social media analytics framework developed by a QUT-based start-up. Hypometer technology was also used in the SMRG's analysis of social media activity surrounding last year's G20 Summit in Brisbane, and provides innovative functionality for tracking and ranking social media activity around major topics, events and brands.

The Hypometer's Lead Data Analyst Katie Prowd said events such as election campaigns are a great opportunity to demonstrate the versatility of Hypometer technology.

"We are quickly able to compile and track a variety of hashtags, keywords, and accounts, and to perform advanced social media analytics to examine the relative visibility and popularity of different themes and topics.

"The election Hypometer draws on data from Twitter and Instagram, and performs a range of custom analytics on the raw data to generate useful and reliable trends graphs for the various politicians. This offers clear insights into how the election campaign is unfolding."

Professor Bruns said the first two weeks of the campaign have seen a gradual narrowing of the attention gap between the two major parties. While early social media discussion was largely about the LNP, which initially commanded more than 70 per cent of the social media discussion, the current discussion is much more balanced and involves both major parties; smaller parties continue to receive far less attention, however.

"Of the two leaders, there still is far more discussion about the Premier Campbell Newman than about Opposition Leader Annastacia Palaszczuk, though," said Professor Bruns. "This is probably a reflection both of Newman's greater overall public profile, and of the continuing speculation that he could lose his own seat of Ashgrove."