Twitter and radio indicators of election outcomes: a study of Indian elections

Abstract

The influential role of Twitter and Radio place in affecting the election results around the world. Politicians, political scientists, and journalists often debate the role of Twitter and Radio in voter manipulation during elections. The purpose of this study is to investigate the hypothesis that the more a particular media (i.e., Twitter and Government-owned Radio channel All India Radio) outlet promotes a political party, the more likely voter will vote that specific party. In other words, political parties with the highest Radio broadcast time and high Twitter buzz will get more votes. For the present study, the volume of 'Twitter buzz' and 'Radio' broadcast time allocated to six political parties are considered. The result indicated that election campaign and promotion through Radio channel and on Twitter has positive and significant impact on parties' vote gain during the 2014 Indian General elections. Further, the predictive power of Radio is found more influential than Twitter.