The Google voter: search engines and elections in the new media ecology

Trevisan, Filippo; Hoskins, Andrew; Oates, Sarah; Mahlouly, Dounia

doi:10.1080/1369118x.2016.1261171

Cited by 33 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Although undoubtedly not a representative measure of public opinion (Trevisan et al 2018), it offers a reliable 'public driven gauge of salience' (Boydstun et al 2014: 526) that has been used in a number of studies of agenda-setting (Bennett et al, 2018;Boydstun et al, 2014;Graeff et al, 2014).…”

Section: Approach Methods and Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Political Agenda Setting in the Hybrid Media System: Why Legacy Media Still Matter a Great Deal

Langer

Gruber

2020

The International Journal of Press/Politics

116

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This article examines the roles of the media in the process of political agenda setting. There is a long tradition of studies on this topic, but they have mostly focused on legacy news media, thus overlooking the role of other actors and the complex hybrid dynamics that characterize contemporary political communication. In contrast, through an in-depth case study using mixed-methods and multiplatform data, this article provides a detailed analysis of the roles and interactions between different types of media and how they were used by political and advocacy elites. It explores what happened in the different parts of the system, and thus the paths to attention that led to setting this issue in the political and media agendas. The analysis of the case, a partial policy reversal in the United Kingdom provoked by an immigration scandal known as the “Windrush scandal” reveals that the issue was pushed into the agenda by a campaign assemblage of investigative journalism, political and advocacy elites, and digitally enabled leaders. The legacy news media came late but were crucial. They greatly amplified the salience of the issue and, once in “storm mode,” they were key for sustaining attention and pressure, eventually compelling the government to respond. It shows that they often remain at the core of the “national conversation” and certainly in the eye of a media storm. In the contemporary context, characterized by fierce battles for attention, shortening attention spans and fractured audiences, this is key and has important implications for agenda setting and beyond.

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Section: Approach Methods and Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Political Agenda Setting in the Hybrid Media System: Why Legacy Media Still Matter a Great Deal

Langer

Gruber

2020

The International Journal of Press/Politics

116

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“…Since the origin of elections, obtaining information to design and monitor campaigns is a key tool for designing the electoral strategy. The key role of data in campaigns has not changed, what has changed is the way of obtaining this information and the greater certainty provided by obtaining data through different information sources, which allows candidates to adapt their strategies and respond to their electorates' reactions (Trevisan et al, 2018).…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Several investigations have shown that it is an effective tool for making data predictions, as revealed by numerous studies in the social (Chai & Sasaki, 2011;Gunn & Lester, 2013), economic (Ettredge et al, 2005;Kaeserbauer et al, 2012;Trevisan et al, 2018), or health field (Hagerty & Veenhoven, 2003;Nuti et al, 2014).…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, it is important to note that predicting winners with this type of tool is only possible in democratic elections and in countries with freedom of online navigation (Trevisan et al, 2018). Furthermore, there are also studies that point to the negative effect and/or biases of using these indicators, since, as mentioned by Epstein and Robertson (2015), a "search engine manipulation effect" may occur and directly affect election results; minority or alternative political parties would be excluded (Hindman, 2009) due to the loop effect of the most relevant searches (Halavais, 2009); or submission to commercial agents such as Google (Mager, 2012).…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Google Trends as a Predictor of Presidential Elections: The United States Versus Canada

Prado‐Román

Gómez-Martínez

Orden‐Cruz

2020

American Behavioral Scientist

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The media and election campaign managers conduct several polls in the days leading up to the presidential elections. These preelection polls have a different predictive capacity, despite the fact that under a Big Data approach, sources that indicate voting intention can be found. In this article, we propose a free method to anticipate the winner of the presidential election based on this approach. To demonstrate the predictive capacity of this method, we conducted the study for two countries: the United States of America and Canada. To this end, we analysed which candidate had the most Google searches in the months leading up to the polling day. In this article, we have taken into account the past four elections in the United States and the past five in Canada, since Google first published its search statistics in 2004. The results show that this method has predicted the real winner in all the elections held since 2004 and highlights that it is necessary to monitor the next elections for the presidency of the United States in November 2020 and to have more accurate information on the future results.

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“…The study of media ecologies has a long history 1 , and a survey is beyond the scope of this article. However, it is important to note a number of contributions that have identified key characteristics of a 'new' or 'digital' media ecology (Parikka 2005;Awan et al 2011;Merrin 2014;Trevisan et al 2016) particularly in relation to the organic nature of digital networks.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%