Election 2015: Computer scientists in Warwick claim Twitter
Source: Emma McKinney
Prime Minister David Cameron (left), Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg (centre) and Labour leader of the Opposition Ed Miliband
Computer scientists from a Midland university are using Twitter to predict the UK general election result - and claim their model could provide the most accurate forecast.
The team from the University of Warwick, which is working with City University London and the Greece-based and the Information Technologies Institute, says its predictions could be more accurate than the traditional opinion polls.
A university spokesman said: “The team is using an algorithm that harvests political tweets, aggregates various features about every party and then injects this information into conventional polling reports, producing a daily prediction of voting share.
“With the outcome of the general election in terms of seats more uncertain than ever, this approach will provide crucial insights into how public opinion is developing and what factors might be influencing any changes in support.
“Early results of the system have already tracked the surge in support for the SNP and the fluctuating fortunes of UKIP.”
City University’s Prof Steve Schifferes added: “Social media is now central to how people consume election news.
“This ground-breaking research will give us deeper insights into how people are developing their own understanding of the election that goes beyond the traditional news media’s agenda, and could enable us to spot early trends which could affect the overall outcome.”
Information Technologies Institute researcher Symeon Papadopoulos said the study could lead to ground-breaking ways to predict the outcome of major polls.
“Although social media has already been used for some time as a means of discovering current trends and as a proxy of the interests and perceptions of the public, research has only recently started exploring its potential for predicting real-world outcomes such as the results of elections.
“To date, there is no reliable approach for achieving this.
“Our approach, which has already been tested in a couple of recent elections with great success, carries the potential of creating the basis for such a solution for the problem of election prediction.”
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