Skip down to main content

Big data and election prediction: analysing online information seeking during the European Parliament elections

Big data and election prediction: analysing online information seeking during the European Parliament elections

Overview

This project investigates the extent to which the characteristics of different political systems (for example, the number of major political parties) affect patterns of online information seeking behaviour which take place during election time (for example, the number and type of searches on Google for different politicians). It will use the European Parliament elections as a case study, examining information seeking patterns generated by the elections in 2009 and 2014 across the 28 member states of the European Union, and attempting to explain variation in these patterns through reference to the characteristics of the country in question. Data will be collected from two different platforms (Google and Wikipedia) and statistical methods will be applied to them to characterise the patterns of online information seeking behaviour.

The overall aim of the project is to enhance current research on the use of internet generated “big data” coming out of platforms such as Google, Wikipedia and Twitter for the purposes of election prediction. This is an area which has generated considerable interest in computer science and political science, yet also much disappointment, following the poor predictive power identified by much current research (for example, the number of times candidates are mentioned on Twitter has been found to bear little relation to overall electoral outcomes). The major reason for this, we argue, is that so far researchers have made no attempt to elaborate theoretically how social behaviour on the internet relates to overall electoral outcomes, and how this behaviour is driven by different political contexts. This study will take some first steps towards filling that gap. In so doing, we will also explore the role that online information seeking plays in contemporary democratic politics.

Support

This project is funded by the John Fell OUP Research Fund.

Fell Fund

Key Information

Funder:
  • John Fell OUP Research Fund
  • Project dates:
    September 2014 - September 2015

    All Publications

    Articles

    Privacy Overview
    Oxford Internet Institute

    This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

    Strictly Necessary Cookies
    • moove_gdrp_popup -  a cookie that saves your preferences for cookie settings. Without this cookie, the screen offering you cookie options will appear on every page you visit.

    This cookie remains on your computer for 365 days, but you can adjust your preferences at any time by clicking on the "Cookie settings" link in the website footer.

    Please note that if you visit the Oxford University website, any cookies you accept there will appear on our site here too, this being a subdomain. To control them, you must change your cookie preferences on the main University website.

    Google Analytics

    This website uses Google Tags and Google Analytics to collect anonymised information such as the number of visitors to the site, and the most popular pages. Keeping these cookies enabled helps the OII improve our website.

    Enabling this option will allow cookies from:

    • Google Analytics - tracking visits to the ox.ac.uk and oii.ox.ac.uk domains

    These cookies will remain on your website for 365 days, but you can edit your cookie preferences at any time via the "Cookie Settings" button in the website footer.