Abstract
Traditional political polling methods have become less reliable as society adopts more smartphone technology. Internet and social media use have also risen due to increased smartphone use, which have given a digital voice to political views. This study assessed one social media platform, Twitter, as a means for predicting election outcomes more accurately than traditional methods. Michigan and Wisconsin’s ‘tweets’ related to the 2016 presidential election campaign slogans of candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were compiled and a numerical comparison was performed. WordCloud technology was employed for a visual representation of the numerical data. Numerical comparison yielded results and predictions that were inconsistent with the actual outcome of the election, visual content analysis of the WorldCloud images revealed that qualitative data might be more useful in election predictions. Future studies should expand on qualitative analyses of social media involvement as a potential replacement for traditional polling methods.
Recommended Citation
Hinch, Jaryd
(2018)
"#MakeAmericasPollsGreatAgain: Evaluating Twitter as a Tool to Predict Election Outcomes,"
The Geographical Bulletin: Vol. 59:
Iss.
1, Article 3.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/thegeographicalbulletin/vol59/iss1/3