A social media analysis to gauge public sentiment towards political parties during the poll campaign has revealed that the UDF garnered a “disproportionate percentage of criticism” in comparison to the other fronts. The experimental project by the Technopark-based Flytxt was carried out using text analytics to gauge public opinion, especially on parties that put up candidates for the May 16 poll.
Social networking website Facebook was used as the data source for the analysis. The posts were sourced from the official pages maintained by political parties as well as from pages of some prominent leaders. The data of six months preceding the date of polling were taken and clustering technique was used to group similar comments in one cluster.
The comments were scored based on their relevance and frequency. The clusters were then visualised in the form of word clouds to aid in quickly perceiving the most prominent terms.
These clusters displayed comments praising the party for either its good work or expressing good wishes for a favourable result. The distribution, in percentage, of such sentiments was 60 per cent, 65 per cent and 70 per cent for the LDF, the UDF, and the BJP respectively.
Both the LDF and the UDF accrued 3 per cent share of voice in comments that centred on the ‘yatras’ (marches). The percentage share of comments on the BJP’s yatra was lower in comparison but the name of Kummanam Rajasekharan came out prominently.
On criticism, the LDF’s percentage share stood at 1 per cent, BJP 5 per cent, and the highest was for the UDF with 15 per cent critical comments. Most of the criticism for the LDF was about forming an alliance with the Congress in West Bengal.
For the UDF, the criticism was around the various corruption charges as well as its liquor policy. The UDF was also criticised for not taking adequate measures to bring down the fuel prices and for the plight of rubber farmers.
The BJP was criticised for getting embroiled in controversies related to student politics and the high fuel prices. As much as 20 per cent of the LDF comments discussed and criticised policies of the BJP and the UDF, who form the governments at the Centre and the State respectively.
