New Delhi: Social media's perceptions of the political space reflect larger events in the real world. Week-on-week analysis of mentions by social media trackers To the New reveals Narendra Modi is being steadily mentioned in increasing numbers on such sites as Facebook and Twitter in the past fortnight.
While the Gujarat CM was mentioned 84,938 times in the first week of the survey, this went up to 95,074 in Week 2. Other prominent political leaders such as Rajnath Singh, LK Advani and Sharad Pawar were also mentioned more in Week 2, but their total individual figures are far below Modi's. On the other hand, while Arvind Kejriwal was mentioned a whopping 1,52,602 times during Week 1, by the end of Week 2 he had fallen below Modi's figures. Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi was mentioned a paltry 33,889 times in the first week, the figure falling further in the succeeding week, signifying his continued image problems in social media and elsewhere.
In terms of sentiment, Modi's image suffered somewhat over the fortnight. In the first week, there was 46 per cent positive sentiment for him and 4 per cent negative. In Week 2, however, positive sentiment for the BJP's prime ministerial candidate had plummeted to 25 per cent while negative feelings had surged to 20 per cent. Rahul Gandhi, who evoked 32 per cent negative sentiment in Week 1, saw this figure go up to 40 per cent in Week 2.
Social media also appears to be coalescing its feelings about Kejriwal towards either positive or negative. In Week 1, there was 14 per cent positive sentiment for him and 33 per cent negative, while in Week 2 this was 24 per cent and 33 per cent respectively. However, neutral feelings for him had eroded from 53 per cent to 42 per cent.
Other political events were also reflected in the survey results. Controversial leader Pramod Muthalik had witnessed neutral sentiments in Week 1 but after denial of electoral opportunity by BJP, social media showed 35 per cent negative sentiments towards him.
At the macro level, BJP continues to dominate mentions of political parties, surging to 2,85,404 mentions in Week 2. The AAP, which had more mentions than the former in Week 1 at 2,30,913 lagged behind at 1,76,606 by the end of the survey period, while the Congress trailed far behind either party at 1,05,789 mentions. BJP and TMC also saw increased negative sentiment on social media during the fortnight. However, while the BJP, along with Congress, AAP and Shiv Sena also saw increased positive sentiment, TMC saw lesser number of positive sentiments expressed in this space. Clearly, social media has taken its function as barometer for the wider world to heart.
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