Green Energy and Health Care join Jobs as Twitterverse Campaign Themes
A shorter version of this blog post can be found on the Toronto Board of Trade website (link)
In one of the more important turns of the campaign David Suzuki endorsed Dalton McGuinty and the OLP. Green Energy is a top issue associated significantly with the Liberals; on Twitter over the Sept. 17th weekend their environmental record was significantly discussed. The Green Energy discussion also links to the major campaign theme to date of Jobs, as jobs are discussed in terms of environmentally friendly job creation. This shows that the previous weekend’s trending of green jobs really got traction in the week of September 12-16th.
For Sunday Sept. 18th, “Vote” was the top word, associated in particular with comparisons of the voting record of Andrea Horwath to Tim Hudak in the Ontario Provincial Parliament. Many Tweeters retweeted the message that Horwath and Hudak voted the same way more than 150 times despite their ideological differences. “Job” continued to be strong, with Tim Hudak’s announcement of a five-point job plan getting some traction on Twitter showing that the progressive conservatives know how to react to the biggest topic of the election campaign so far.
Health care began to trend for the first time on Sunday the 18th in the Twitterverse as a campaign issue with Dalton McGuinty visiting the sick kids hospital to emphasize the OLP’s record on health care garnering a number of tweets. Multiple tweets critiqued the PCPO and Tim Hudak for dismantling hospitals in the past and lacking plans to fund hospitals in the future. In a reflection of how the OLP is engaging well with the Twitterverse, a number of tweets associated the Party with an elevated level of trust compared to the other parties when it comes to guiding the Ontario health care system.
Overall Timeline
Timeline for the weekend of September 17th and 18th
Top Words reflect Green Jobs, and the David Suzuki endorsement of the OLP
The top publishers e.g. those Twitter accounts that produced the largest number of tweets are as follows:
However, the most important accounts based on interaction, our “Top Tweeters” (mentions and replies, but not retweets) are as follows and show that Horwath garnered the most discussion over the weekend, followed by Hudak. McGuinty was not discussed as much this weekend by name.
Top Shared Links
1. Similar to the previous week, an attack site against Horwath tops the shared links
2. The official Dalton McGuinty OLP Facebook page, with multiple videos
3. An OLP ‘rogue’ website comparing the voting record of Horwath and Hudak
4. The official Andrea Horwath NDP website for NDP videos
5. A video that has now been removed from YouTube by the original poster, which was the endorsement of Dalton McGuinty by David Suzuki
