[Paper Review] UK General Election 2017: a Twitter Analysis

Laura Cram, Clare Llewellyn+2 more|arXiv (Cornell University)|Jun 7, 2017

Social Media and Politics21 citations

TL;DR

This study analyzes Twitter activity during the UK General Election 2017, using social media data to examine political sentiment, trending topics, and media influence. It finds that pro-Labour sentiment dominated the conversation, Brexit was the central issue, and media-driven hashtags significantly shaped the discourse, with social media detecting shifts in public opinion earlier than traditional media.

ABSTRACT

This work is produced by researchers at the Neuropolitics Research Lab, School of Social and Political Science and the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. In this report we provide an analysis of the social media posts on the British general election 2017 over the month running up to the vote. We find that pro-Labour sentiment dominates the Twitter conversation around GE2017 and that there is also a disproportionate presence of the Scottish National Party (SNP), given the UK-wide nature of a Westminster election. Substantive issues have featured much less prominently and in a less sustained manner in the Twitter debate than pro and anti leader and political party posts. However, the issue of Brexit has provided a consistent backdrop to the GE2017 conversation and has rarely dropped out of the top three most popular hashtags in the last month. Brexit has been the issue of the GE2017 campaign, eclipsing even the NHS. We found the conversation in the GE2017 Twitter debate to be heavily influenced both by external events and by the top-down introduction of hashtags by broadcast media outlets, often associated with specific programmes and the mediatised political debates. Hashtags like these have a significant impact on the shape of the data collected from Twitter and might distort studies with short data-collection windows but are usually short-lived with little long term impact on the Twitter conversation. If the current polling is to be believed Jeremy Corbyn is unlikely to do as badly as was anticipated when the election was first called. Traditional media sources were slow to pick up on this change in public opinion whereas this trend could be seen early on in social media and throughout the month of May.

Motivation & Objective

• To examine the dynamics of political discourse on Twitter during the UK General Election 2017.
• To assess the role of social media in reflecting and shaping public opinion ahead of the election.
• To investigate the influence of media-driven hashtags on the structure and content of online political conversations.
• To compare social media sentiment with traditional media coverage and polling trends.
• To evaluate the impact of external events and political debates on Twitter engagement.

Proposed method

• Data was collected from Twitter over a one-month period leading up to the 2017 UK General Election.
• Sentiment analysis was applied to classify tweets as pro-Labour, pro-Conservative, or other based on content.
• Hashtag frequency and virality were tracked to identify trending topics and media influence.
• The study analyzed temporal patterns in tweet volume and sentiment to detect shifts in public discourse.
• Media coverage and event timelines were correlated with spikes in hashtag usage and sentiment changes.
• The analysis compared social media trends with traditional media narratives and polling data to assess early detection of opinion shifts.

Experimental results

Research questions

• RQ1 How did political sentiment on Twitter reflect public opinion during the UK General Election 2017?
• RQ2 To what extent did media-driven hashtags shape the structure and content of the online political conversation?
• RQ3 Which issues dominated the Twitter discourse, and how did their prominence change over time?
• RQ4 How did external events and televised debates influence Twitter engagement and sentiment?
• RQ5 Did social media detect shifts in public opinion earlier than traditional media or polling data?

Key findings

• Pro-Labour sentiment dominated the Twitter conversation throughout the month leading up to the 2017 UK General Election.
• The Scottish National Party (SNP) had a disproportionately high presence on Twitter relative to its national electoral share.
• Substantive policy issues were discussed less frequently and with less sustained engagement than personal attacks or party-related content.
• Brexit consistently ranked among the top three most used hashtags and served as the dominant backdrop to the entire election conversation.
• Media outlets significantly influenced the Twitter discourse by introducing and promoting specific hashtags, often tied to televised debates and programming.
• Social media detected a shift in public opinion toward Jeremy Corbyn earlier than traditional media, which initially underestimated his support.