Elections and the Internet

A multidisciplinary research and teaching department of the University of Oxford, dedicated to the social science of the Internet.

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The internet was used daily or almost daily by 82% of adults (41.8 million) in Great Britain in 2016. We are interested in what internet activity during elections can tell us about contemporary elections, voting behaviour, and political preferences.

Latest

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Artificial intelligence can save democracy, unless it destroys it first

AI has helped politicians get elected, but what effect is it having on democracy? There has never been a better time to be a...
Blog

Stormzy 1: The Sun 0 — Three Reasons Why #GE2017 Was the Real Social Media Election

After its initial appearance as a cynical but safe device by Teresa May to ratchet up the Conservative majority, the UK general election of...
Blog

Could Voting Advice Applications force politicians to keep their manifesto promises?

To what extent do VAAs alter the way voters perceive the meaning of elections, and encourage them to hold politicians to account for election...
Blog

Video: Ten things you wish you didn’t know about elections (and what to do about them)

In this talk, Prof Phil Howard explains how we are targeted and manipulated by social media and bots trying to influence voter behaviour. Since 2012,...
Blog

Digital era political parties post #GE2015

Along with consultants and advisors and large-scale data management platforms from Obama’s hugely successful digital campaigns, all the main political parties used an arsenal...
Blog

Could social media forecast political movements?

GE2015 turned out to be a bad night for some. Beyond the obvious political parties, the reputation of polling firms took a big hit:...
Blog

Where do people mention candidates on Twitter?

In previous posts we’ve looked at people mentioning local party candidates on Twitter. In that post we basically assumed that people mentioning local candidates...
Blog

Which parties were most read on Wikipedia?

Taha and Stefano previously looked at the distribution of Wikipedia pages by candidate. These pages are much more patchy than Twitter handles: only in...
Blog

What if mentions were votes?

The last post looked at mention activity for each British constituency. What would happen if we took these mentions to be votes? Does this...
Blog

Which parties are having the most impact on Twitter?

The previous two posts have shown that the amount of effort parties are putting in on Twitter at the local level is pretty variable....
Blog

The (local) General Election on Twitter

The UK’s national election is decided on a constituency basis: 650 odd separate small elections, each returning one MP. Despite the obvious importance of...
Blog

Online presence of the General Election Candidates: Labour wins Twitter while Tories take Wikipedia

Some have called the forthcoming UK general election a Social Media Election. It might be a bit of exaggeration, but there is no doubt that both...

People

Person

Professor Helen Margetts

Helen Margetts is the Director of the OII. She is a political scientist specialising in digital era government, politics and public policy, and data science and experimental methods.
Person

Dr Jonathan Bright

Jonathan Bright is a political scientist specialising in computational and ‘big data’ approaches to the social sciences.
Person

Dr Scott A. Hale

Dr Scott A. Hale is a Senior Data Scientist & Research Fellow, Social Data Science Programme Director, and Turing Fellow. He develops and applies computer science techniques to the social sciences focusing on bilingualism, UX, mobilization, and mobility.
Person

Professor Philip Howard

Philip N. Howard is a professor of sociology, information and international affairs. He is the author, most recently, of Pax Technica: How the Internet of Things May Set Us Free or Lock Us Up.
Person

Vyacheslav W. Polonski

Vyacheslav Polonski an OII DPhil alumnus, specialising in network science and the sociology of the Internet. His research focused on the structural aspects of collective behaviour in online communities.

Oxford Internet Institute

Elections and the Internet

Latest

Artificial intelligence can save democracy, unless it destroys it first

Stormzy 1: The Sun 0 — Three Reasons Why #GE2017 Was the Real Social Media Election

Could Voting Advice Applications force politicians to keep their manifesto promises?

Video: Ten things you wish you didn’t know about elections (and what to do about them)

Could social media forecast political movements?

Where do people mention candidates on Twitter?

Which parties were most read on Wikipedia?

What if mentions were votes?

Which parties are having the most impact on Twitter?

Online presence of the General Election Candidates: Labour wins Twitter while Tories take Wikipedia

People

Dr Jonathan Bright

Dr Scott A. Hale

Professor Philip Howard

Vyacheslav W. Polonski

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