Public Opinion on Cyberspace: public debate on Twitter in Brazilian

election 2014

Fabrício Olivetti de Françafolivetti@ufabc.edu.br

Claudio Luis de Camargo Penteadoclaudio.penteado@ufabc.edu.br

João GuerbaliSupport by FAPESP (Brazil – SP)Project: Electoral contest in the cyberspace

Aim of study

● This paper studies the use of Twitter as a discussion forum in the society of information during the Brazilian presidential elections in 2014.

● The aim of this research is analyze the debate among the users of Twitter and understand their political behavior in the cyberspace

Internet, Elections and Public Debate

● Obama Election in 2008:

Ø Highlights for the power of internet (MyBO)

● Online campaign: tools of communication

Ø Campaing Sites, Blogs, SNS, WhatsApp

● Brazil Internet:

Ø IBGE (Pnad 2013): 49,4% population withIntenet access

Ø PBM 2015: 37% daily use and 67% searchfor informations

avaiable in: ftp://ftp.ibge.gov.br/Acesso_a_internet_e_posse_celular/2013/pnad2013_tic.pdf. Access at: 05/04/2015

http://www.secom.gov.br/atuacao/pesquisa/lista-de-pesquisas-quantitativas-e-qualitativas-de-contratos-atuais/pesquisa-brasileira-de-midia-pbm-2015.pdf. Access at: 05/04/2015

Social Media and Elections● Mass-self communication (Castells, 2009) – active users

● New channel of communication for political candidates thus creating new ways of campaign in which people may have a more active participation

● Popularization of SNS in Brazil:

Ø 77 % to access SNS (Cetic.br - Center of Studies on Information and Communication Technologies)

o Most Popular: Facebook – 83% audience

o Twitter: 33,3 million of Brazilian users

o PBM 2015: Twitter most popular among political elite and opinion leaders

Brazilian election in 2014● Context: World Cup, Eduardo

Campos death (presidencial candidate) and Marina Silva entry to replace him, volatility of the intention to vote

● Strong debate on SNS

● Formation supporting clusters

Cyberspace and public debate

● ICT and democracy – distributed network

● Internet: space of social, cultural and political interactions

● User as producer and transmitter of information

● Debate of public issues – campaing

● Internet extends and pluralizes the public sphere in a number of ways (Dahlgren, 2005)

Methodology

● Extration of data by key words

● Identification of retweets most popular

● Identification of clusters (by EdgeCount)

(a) 1st round (voting day)

(b) 2nd round (voting day)

● RTs classification by: profile, framing and themes

(a) From Jun 1st to 26 Oct 2014

(b) Top 20 week (n = 340)

Rede EdgeCountDia 05/10/2014 – 1º turno

Top 20 :1. PastorMalafaia2. FredH_3. LuanaPiovaniTV4. Maconhalizado5. G16. Cleycianne7. luscaspfvr8. ttwitandu9. Jakepassivo10. Doce_Vicio11. JoseAloiseBahia12. boris_causoy13. turquim514. emirsader15. marisascruz16. coroneldoblog17. GringaBrazilien18. Leo_oguarda19. BlogOlhoNaMira20. StellaMendonca

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

91010

11

12

131415

16

17

18

19

20

AntiPTCluster

PT Cluster

Top 20 :1. DaniloGentili2. VEJA3. PastorMalafaia4. LuanaPiovaniTV5. BlogDoPim6. VeraLuciaDutra7. folha_com8. cartacapital9. marisascruz10. coroneldoblog11. tumaoficial12. turquim513. thierrybesse14. TheOliverStone15. stanleyburburin16. joaopaulom17. mateiovelha18. FatosEx19. pablovillaca20. euidiotices

1

2

3

456

78 9

1011

12

13

14

15 16

17

18

19

20

Rede EdgeCountDia 26/10/2014 – 2º turno

AntiPTCluster

PT Cluster

Humor

regular user

candidate

politician

party

News sites n blogs

governmental

journalist

Humorist-twiter

others

tradicional media

religioner

engaged

celebrity

twiterman

Journalist-twitter

0 510 15 20 25 30

5

8

1,5

1

5

0,5

7,529,5

213

3

5

8,5

9

0,5

%

Profile Analyse - RT

Framing RTs

undetermined

political position

information

against PT

social engaged

Institutional Information

humorous content

support

against Politicians

against PSDB

against Dilma

against Marina

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

4,5

5,5

18

2

0,5

1,2526,5

5

1

233

1,5

%

Themes RTs

personal

GLBT

health

education

World Cup

security policy

mobility

economy

surveys

campaing

others

TV debate

Globo interview

Petrobrás

internet

corruption

foreign policy

religion

05

1015

2025

30

10

1

0,5

215

0,5

0,56

6,512

25,5

3,5

4,5

5

1,5

3

3

1,5

%

CommentsA) Network RTs:(1) 1st Round: more spread out(2) 2nd Round: polarized, close networks(3) Clusters of humorist-twitter (jokes with politician - Dilma)

B) Profile:(1) Highlight – 29,5% Humorist-twitter(2) range of profiles(3) low occurance of parties, candidates and politicians

C) Framing:(1) Highlight – 33% against Dilma and 26,5 % humoristic content(2) low occurance of political position

D) Themes:(1) Variety of themes(2) No theme prevailed in the online discussion

Conclusions

● Episodic feature of political debate on Twitter

● Existense of political networks (left and right?)

● Difficulty of interaction between networks: formation of endogamicnetworks (“preaching to converts’)

● The message does not matter: spread of any information inside ofclusters (identity of cluster)

● High occurrence of jokes (humor contents)

● Any profile could be important on debate

● Twitter mood against Dilma Rousseff in the 2014 Brazilian Elections