For Political Candidates, All Twitter Publicity Is Good Publicity
Tweeting To Vote Screenshot via Twitter More mentions on Twitter mean more votes for a candidate, whether the buzz is positive or negative. Good news, Anthony Weiner? New research suggests that the more social media posts about a political figure, the greater the number of votes the candidate will get at the polls. In politics, all Twitter publicity is good publicity, according to a study presented today at the American Sociological Association's annual meeting. The percentage of tweets mentioning Congressional candidates in 2010 and 2012 races correlated positively with the percentage of votes those candidates received, the researchers from Indiana University Bloomington found. They analyzed 537 million tweets collected by IU's Center for Complex Networks and Systems Research, which has the largest sample of tweets in the world compiled for academic study, and found that more mentions of any kind on Twitter (either lauding or bashing the candidate) meant more...