Researchers Said Facebook Interactions Might Have Signaled the GE2020 Results But They Were Missed by the Parties

In 2020, aside from the pandemic, the other topic which got us in heated discussions was GE2020.

Remember how we stayed up till wee hours to catch the live results?

The online world was abuzz with stories, and social media became our most sought after platform to get the latest GE2020 news since on ground rallies weren’t allowed.

As social media became one of the platforms with heavier usage during the election, researchers took to one of the biggest platforms, Facebook, to conduct a study and shared their findings about GE2020.

The study was conducted by Analytix Labs. Findings were shared on October 8 at an online forum organised by Institute of Policy Studies.

Results were derived from more than 32,000 COVID-19-related Facebook posts from seven local media outlets between 1 January and 12 July.

The seven local media outlets are CNA, The Straits Times, Mothership, Today, Zaobao, Wanbao and Shin Min Daily News.

The study also sourced data from more than 8,000 GE related Facebook posts from 15 public pages between 22 June and 11 July.

The pages include those belonging to the People’s Action Party (PAP), Workers’ Party (WP), Progress Singapore Party (PSP), Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Mr Pritam Singh, Dr Tan Cheng Bock and Mr Lee Hsien Yang.

And guess what?

Facebook might have interfered with the elections in the US, but in Singapore, it became a fortune teller.

Signals on Facebook about GE2020 Possibly Missed by Political Parties

So what did Facebook data show about the election?

According to Mr Chua Chin Hon, Analytix Labs’ chief data analyst, the biggest assumption going into GE2020 is that there’s going to be a ‘flight to safety’ effect among voters.

This effect refers to the belief that voters would be more inclined to support incumbents (in the case, the PAP) during a crisis.

The data showed otherwise.

The first interesting signal on Facebook was the public’s interest in the election as compared to news about the pandemic.

According to CNA, by Nomination Day and Polling Day, daily user interactions with Covid-19 Facebook posts had dipped from its peak in April.

Mr Chua said, “The ‘flight to safety’ instinct, if it existed, likely dissipated along the way.”

This is because the data indicated that voters were open to competing messages.

Aside from that, another point worth noting was the controversy over Mr Ivan Lim, a former prospective PAP candidate.

Several allegations were made towards Mr Lim during that point in time.

On June 27, Mr Ivan Lim announced his decision to withdraw from contesting in the election. It was the same day where the PAP launched its manifesto.

Based on the data, Facebook posts on Mr Lim received 8.65 times more total interaction than the launch of the PAP’s manifesto.

According to Mr Chua, that was the first major sign that voters were paying attention to a bunch of other issues.

However, it could be due to the fact that online users are drawn to drama and controversy, and that social media reaction for election manifestos would be low. I mean, you know about Ivan Lim but not about PAP’s manifesto, right?

However, Mr Chua mentioned that the large interaction gap should have rung some alarm bells for the PAP that its message on jobs wasn’t registering with voters as well as they thought it might have.

WP’s Sengkang Team had a Higher Number of Facebook Interactions Per Day on Average

You should now suspend your disbelief that “whatever happens on the internet stays on the internet.”

The data from Facebook interactions showed that the WP Sengkang team had about 32,700 Facebook interactions per day on average throughout the campaign period.

While the PAP team had an average of about 4,200 Facebook interactions a day.

The significant gap showed that the Sengkang team had garnered far greater mindshare and name recognition than the PAP.

Mr Chua highlighted that those who reacted to the Facebook posts were not necessarily Sengkang voters or even Singaporeans.

But we all know who wins Sengkang GRC.

Enthusiasm Gap between the PAP and opposition’s Campaigning Messages

Mr Chua also mentioned that there was an enthusiasm gap between the PAP’s and opposition’s campaigning messages.

What this means is that the Facebook interactions with posts related to the PAP’s jobs message peaked very early during the election, but lost steam by the time it ended.

This is in contrast with the opposition parties, where messages peaked at the end of the campaign, just before Cooling Off and Polling Day.

Go Beyond Scratching the Surface

Mr Chua concluded that while political parties are getting better at producing social media content, most of them were still “scratching the surface” of what modern electoral campaigns do in analysing data and social media targeting.

I mean, remember how Trump won the last election? It involved much more data and targetting.

He added that political parties have to go beyond just thinking about content creation and distribution.

In order to do well, better data analysis on the content they generate, and those that’s being generated in the media, is required.

But hey: five years from now, I bet my all boss’ assets that no one would be using Facebook, so it’s time for politicians to start their TikTok accounts now.