3 Debates Later...has anything changed?

[Ali Fisher]

Did four and a half hours of televised debate change anything? Numerous column inches have been taken up discussing which leader won or lost each debate and the election is just over the horizon...

With electoral behaviour hard to predict, but analysis of twitter gives information on how people are reacting now rather than asking how they intend to act come polling day. If users are behaving differently Twitter data from the first and final debates might show us how.

During the first debate (fig 1) it was unusual for users to mention all three leaders. If a user tweeted about more than one leader, the likelihood was that during the debate they had written tweets about Gordon Brown and David Cameron.

However during the third debate (fig 2), users increasingly tend to tweet about all three leaders. Continue reading →