Economy and jobs top the list of federal election topics on Twitter
The No. 1 federal election issue that Canadians are discussing on Twitter is the same one the major party leaders are talking about: the economy.
Data from Twitter Canada shows the economy, jobs and the possibility that Canada will slip into recession were the top issues in the first few days after the official campaign began. Coming in second was national security, particularly talk about the government’s controversial anti-terrorism legislation, known as Bill C-51.
Those happen to be the issues the federal leaders, particularly Conservative Stephen Harper, have used to frame the so-called ballot box questions for the campaign: Who is best suited to manage a troubled economy and what path to follow on national security?
But these are early days and the online chatter could change quickly. It did in the Alberta election when early talk of the economy and oilsands gave way to chatter about education and health care that coincided with a rise in NDP fortunes.
“As you watch what those conversations are on Twitter throughout the entire election cycle, you’re really going to see which parties are starting to gain traction with their messaging based on what people are starting to talk about on Twitter,” said Steve Ladurantaye, Twitter Canada’s head of government partnerships.
Twitter Canada released its first data sets from the more than 26,000 tweets that users sent after the official start of the campaign.
More than 34,000 tweets have mentioned Stephen Harper’s Twitter handle (@pmharper) since the writ dropped on Aug. 2, according to the data. Twitter Canada said Harper and Trudeau have both gained more than 300,000 followers in the past 12 months. The firm also said there has been a 423 per cent increase in daily tweets featuring the #cdnpoli hashtag since the last federal election in May 2011.
Twitter analyzed all the tweets from the first four days of the campaign period that were tagged with the “elxn42” hashtag. It doesn’t take into account tweets that weren’t tagged, but discussed leaders, candidates, parties and issues.
The economy topped Twitter conversations in Alberta, Manitoba, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in the early days.
The length and cost of what will be one of the longest campaigns in modern history dominated Twitter chat in Ontario, while Quebec, P.E.I. and B.C. users were most concerned about security, surveillance and C-51. The increased traffic through the opening days of this campaign is already above the action Twitter Canada observed during the first few days of the 2011 campaign.
More candidates — about 800 — have Twitter accounts to use during the campaign, a seeming response to a 423 per cent increase in the number of people tweeting daily about federal politics through the “cdnpoli” hashtag since 2011.
It may also be a sign that candidates and parties think there are votes to be had from millions of Twitter users. The company says about 37 per cent of Canadians are on Twitter. That would mean about 13 million users.
An online survey by Research Now of 1,000 Canadians, split evenly between users of Twitter and users of other social media platforms, suggested about threefifths of those polled had not made up their mind about their vote.