Presentation about the Voter Ecology Project (www.voterecology.com) at the ECREA Communication and Democracy Section annual conference, 11-12 Oct. 2013, Munich, Germany.

1. Mapping the „Search Agenda:‟ A
Citizen-Centric Approach to
Political Information Flows in
Elections
Filippo Trevisan
University of Glasgow
ECREA Symposium „(Mis)understanding Political Participation‟
Munich, 12th Oct. 2013
www.voterecology.com  www.filippotrevisan.net

2. 2
The Voter Ecology Project:
 Project team: Andrew Hoskins, Sarah Oates, Filippo
Trevisan, Dounia Mahlouly.
 Exploring search engine use in elections in established
democracies (United Kingdom, United States), challenged
democracies (Italy) and transitional states (Egypt)
 Part of the ESRC-funded “Google Data Analytics Social Science
Research” initiative developed during the Google Forum UK
(2010-12)
1. Research framework: A citizen-centric approach
2. Methods and preliminary results: Mapping the „search
agenda‟ with Google Trends and nexus analysis
www.voterecology.com  www.filippotrevisan.net

3. Informational Environment in
Elections – The story so far:
Traditional
News Media
Political
Parties/Candidates
Citizens (“Audience”)
www.voterecology.com  www.filippotrevisan.net
3

4. A Citizen-Centric Approach: Information
gathering as purposive behaviour
Unexpected searches
Expected searches
Citizen Agenda
(Search Agenda)
News media
Agenda
Campaigns
Agenda
www.voterecology.com  www.filippotrevisan.net
4

5. 5
Mapping the „Search Agenda:‟
 Unexpected searches are user-driven and do not reflect
the priorities of journalists/editors and
candidates/parties. They could focus on, for example:
- Policy „elephants in the room‟
- Gaffes, gossip and/or scandal
- „Thematic leaps‟
- Generation-specific issues
 Q: How can we compare the three agendas?
www.voterecology.com  www.filippotrevisan.net

6. 6
Mapping the „Search Agenda:‟
 Traditional pol comm scholarship: content analysis of news media and
election manifestos/websites (e.g. Gibson and Ward, 2003;
Gibson, 2013; Lilleker and Jackson, 2011)
 But: resource-intensive and potentially distortive: applying old frames
to a new context.
 Turn the process upside down: start from citizens/users
1.
Identify moments in which demand for online political information is
at its peak through Google Trends (google.com/trends)
2.
Examine key „search events‟ in detail through nexus analysis (Scollon
and Scollon, 2004) to establish what boosted user-interest in
politics, whether the issue(s) involved was also high on the news
and/or campaign agendas, and map its trajectory across both new
and traditional media.
www.voterecology.com  www.filippotrevisan.net

7. 7
And in practice? Searching for leaders in the
2010 UK general election:
120
100
Google Trends score
80
60
David Cameron
Gordon Brown
Nick Clegg
40
20
10
/2
0
10
31
/0
5
/2
0
10
24
/0
5
/2
0
10
17
/0
5
/2
0
10
10
/0
5
/2
0
10
03
/0
5
/2
0
10
26
/0
4
/2
0
10
19
/0
4
/2
0
10
12
/0
4
/2
0
10
05
/0
4
/2
0
10
29
/0
3
/2
0
10
22
/0
3
/2
0
10
15
/0
3
/2
0
/0
3
08
01
/0
3
/2
0
10
0
www.voterecology.com  www.filippotrevisan.net

8. pr
29 - 10
-A
pr
30 - 10
-A
p
01 r- 10
-M
a
02 y-10
-M
a
03 y-10
-M
a
04 y-10
-M
a
05 y-10
-M
a
06 y-10
-M
a
07 y-10
-M
a
08 y-10
-M
a
09 y-10
-M
a
10 y-10
-M
a
11 y-10
-M
a
12 y-10
-M
a
13 y-10
-M
ay
-1
0
28
-A
13/05/2010
12/05/2010
11/05/2010
10/05/2010
09/05/2010
08/05/2010
07/05/2010
06/05/2010
05/05/2010
04/05/2010
03/05/2010
02/05/2010
01/05/2010
30/04/2010
29/04/2010
28/04/2010
27/04/2010
Bigot-gate: Search patterns vs.
news media coverage
40
250
Bigot-gate searches
20
100
50
0
www.voterecology.com  www.filippotrevisan.net
8
Bigot-gate popularity on Google.co.uk
120
Bigot-gate searches
100
80
60
Bigot-gate in the British press
200
0
150
All Text
Lead Paragraph
Headline

9. -A
p
29 r-10
-A
p
30 r-10
-A
01 p r- 1
-M 0
a
02 y - 1
-M 0
a
03 y - 1
-M 0
a
04 y - 1
-M 0
a
05 y - 1
-M 0
a
06 y - 1
-M 0
a
07 y - 1
-M 0
a
08 y - 1
-M 0
a
09 y - 1
-M 0
a
10 y - 1
-M 0
a
11 y - 1
-M 0
a
12 y - 1
-M 0
a
13 y - 1
-M 0
ay
-1
0
28
Bigot-gate Popularity
Bigot-gate popularity on the „Search
Agenda‟ and the „News Media Agenda:‟
120
100
80
60
UK Press (All text)
UK Press (Headlines)
40
Google.co.uk
20
0
www.voterecology.com  www.filippotrevisan.net
9

10. Google Search score
Thematic Leap? Did voters search
for info about immigration policy?
 In the U.S., Mitt Romney‟s “binders full of women” gaffe had
opposite results (i.e. the average search popularity for info about
women‟s rights/gender gap etc. increased following the episode)
www.voterecology.com  www.filippotrevisan.net
10

11. 11
In conclusion:
 Google Trends enables us to approach the study of information flows in
elections from the point of view of citizens, fundamentally integrating and
possibly overthrowing what we already know on the basis of news coverage and
campaign communication analysis.
 Exploring search patterns with Google Trends provides opportunities to review
events that have become „crystallised‟ in academic and media literature from a
different perspective, possibly de-bunking speculative assumptions.
However…
 Google Trends only provides a limited amount of information. As such, it is
useful to generate cues and raise new questions, but should only be used in
conjunction with other methods as part of a comprehensive inquiry strategy.
 In addition, a useful longitudinal data series is best generated at the end of a
cycle of events (e.g. election campaign). Yet, it can be difficult to map the
media trajectories of events and messages retroactively.
www.voterecology.com  www.filippotrevisan.net