MUMBAI: The 2014 elections have been very different from the previous ones; never before have elections created so much buzz especially among the youngsters.
Media has played a major role in creating elections the hot topic for months now with social media playing a vital role in it. With the Lok Sabha elections already underway, voters have been closely evaluating the manifestos of AAP, BJP and Congress. Conversations on social networks have been buzzing with netizens discussing the various developmental programmes promised by the political parties.
To The New, an integrated digital services network, has released a report that analyses digital conversations across various social platforms such as Twitter, forums and news sites that took place within three days from the date the manifesto was released for that party. The report, powered by ThoughtBuzz, the social media analytics’ arm of the company, also tracks the sentiment around the manifesto and shares “word clouds” that highlights the key sentiments that are dominating the social platforms.
To The New marketing head Irfan Khan said, “The 2014 General Elections has seen immense interest and vocal participation of the youth. The release of the manifestos by the political parties has given the young and the “first-time voters” the opportunity to evaluate and make an informed decision. The report on the buzz around manifesto enables us to understand the psyche of these voters.”
The report reveals that mentions of BJP’s manifesto far outnumbered that of political rivals AAP and Congress with a whopping 76,662 mentions on the social platforms in the span of three days of the release of the party manifesto. In contrast, Congress had 45,604 mentions followed by AAP with 33,250 mentions.
The report findings further revealed that the discussion on AAP manifesto had the most positive outcome amongst the three parties, 34 per cent had a positive tone, 54 per cent had a neutral tone and 12 per cent of the tonality was negative. 57 per cent of the discussion on Congress manifesto had a neutral tone, 30 per cent was negative while only a mere 13 per cent of the tonality was positive. On the other hand, 65 per cent of the discussion on BJP manifesto had a neutral tone, 25 per cent was positive while only 10 per cent of the tonality was negative. In the duration of three days of the release of BJP manifesto, the hashtag #copycatmanifesto, created a lot of buzz on the digital space receiving a total of 41,164 mentions.
