Mostly negative but trend-setter Enda tops Twitter tracker
An analysis of tweets over the course of the general election campaign shows of all the party leaders, it’s Enda that is trending most.
Research conducted by TheJournal.ie and CLARITY (Centre for Sensor Web Technologies) shows that Kenny is the most “talked about” leader on Twitter — with half of all party leader tweets referring to Kenny.
Next after Enda is Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams who accounts for 23% of party leader tweets, followed by Eamon Gilmore on 9%, Micheál Martin on 8% and John Gormley on 6%.
An analysis of a sample of the 20,665 tweets on a real-time Twitter tracker shows sentiment towards Kenny and Martin is largely negative while Gilmore brings in the good and the bad, leading to an overall neutral reaction to the Labour leader. Gerry Adams and John Gormley both emerge with a “slightly negative” overall reaction.
And, while Enda may be largely attracting negative comment on Twitter, he is still definitely the “trend”iest politician in the country.
Enda Kenny is the top trending politician in the country, generating 3,443 tweets yesterday afternoon — more than twice that of the number two trending politician, Lucinda Creighton who is on 1,409 tweets.
Gerry Adams is in third place, Gilmore in fourth, while Dublin South East candidate, Dylan Haskins has clearly played a blinder on Twitter, coming in at fifth place.
Overall however, the winds on Twitter are clearly with Fine Gael as they are the hot topic on the social network with the party generating the most overall discussion during the election.
