Romney vs. Obama: A daily fight

Monday, September 24th, 2012

The crunch has begun and the race is exceptionally close.  Though Obama is generally leading over Romney when social media opinions are compared, the race gets tighter every day. Today, Obama is in the lead, tomorrow…. it’s hard to say. Stay tuned for the newest numbers.

Social Media Reaction to a Separatist Win for Quebec

Thursday, September 6th, 2012

The September 4th election in Quebec brought unprecedented voters to the polls leading to a minority win for the pro-independence Parti Québécois. Reactions in social media were swift as thousands of people voiced their opinions online.

In an analysis of thousands of English language opinions shared in the social media space, the reaction was obviously mixed.  Among all messages about the Quebec election, about 12.8% were negative, 71.4% were neutral, and about 15.8% were positive. As opposed to a strongly positive or strongly negative stance, this highly neutral reaction mirrors the mixed opinions reflected in the minority win.

Reaction to Pauline Marois specifically was 18.4% positive (15.7% negative), a similar reaction to her party’s win which generated 16.8% positive scores (10.6% negative).

Similarly, Jean Charest, the long-time Quebec Liberal Party leader and Premier, generated opinions that were only 9.9% positive and 15.1% negative. His party generated opinions that were 8.1% positive (12.2% negative).

Surprisingly, voters focused on individual people and party’s as opposed to specific issues. In the weeks leading up to the election, only 4.7% of conversations specifically mentioned separatism, compared to 8.7% mentioning schooling, 1.4% mentioning the economy, 0.5% mentioning health care, and 0.2% mentioning child care.

[Results specifically excluded all conversations related to the shooting that killed one person at a PQ post-win event.]

Online Opinions of Candidates in the Toronto Mayoral Election 2010

Monday, October 25th, 2010

In Toronto Canada, today is the last day to vote for the City of Toronto mayor, a race that is mainly between Rob Ford and George Smitherman. Given that Toronto holds about 8% of the population of Canada and both candidates have raised eyebrows in one way or another, this is an extremely important vote. Let’s have a look at the types of words and phrases the online community uses when they’re talking about each candidate in a positive way and in a negative way. [Larger fonts mean that the phrase is used more often.]

Based on the types of words that are most commonly used, who do YOU think will win this vote?

Positive Conversations about George Smitherman

Positive Conversations about Rob Ford


Negative Conversations about George Smitherman


Negative Conversations about Rob Ford