On February 2013, over 35 million Italian citizens voted to renew the national Parliament. For the first time in Italian history, Internet played an important and perhaps decisive role as place of political debating. In order to investigate the role that social media played in this electoral campaign, we collected social media mentions from Facebook and Twitter of the main political leaders during the month prior the election. This resulted in dataset composed by more than 2 millions Twitter messages and 25 millions Facebook interactions. Starting from critical multi-level approach, present paper will attempt both to deal with complexity of election predictive models based on online data and to highlight main determinants affecting vote and online mention. All these questions will be answered through the use of large-scale longitudinal data.

1. Social Media in the 2013 Italian
Election
Luca Rossi1, Fabio Giglietto2, Mario Orefice2, Giovanni Boccia Artieri2

2. dataset
Data source: www.blogmeter.eu

3. Data construction
Every electoral system frame the individual
political opinion within a specific structure e.g.
parties, coalitions, etc.
Social Media
Italian Political system
Conversation based on an
individual level (Politicians)
Parties and coalitions are the
electoral unit.
@silvioberlusconi
@beppegrillo
CDX
@pbersani
IBC
@angealfano
M5S

4. IBC
Centrodestra
ARANCIONI
SCMONTI
-0
1
-0
1
-0
1
-0
1
-0
1
-0
1
-0
1
-0
1
-0
1
-0
1
-0
1
M5S
702
502
302
-2
0
-2
0
-2
0
13
13
13
13
13
13
13
13
13
13
13
13
13
13
-2
0
-2
0
-2
0
-2
0
-2
0
-2
0
-2
0
-2
0
-2
0
-2
0
-2
0
13
13
13
13
13
-2
0
-2
0
-2
0
-2
0
-2
0
102
30
28
26
24
22
20
18
16
14
12
10
801
601
401
201
Polls trend/coalition
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%

5. 12
3-
01
1- 3
20
51
1- 3
2
7- 01
1- 3
2
9- 01
1- 3
11 20
- 1 13
1/ 20
13 13
/
1/ 20
15 13
/
1/ 20
17 13
/
1/ 20
19 13
/
1/ 20
21 13
/
1/ 20
23 13
/
1/ 20
25 13
/
1/ 20
27 13
/
1/ 20
29 13
/
1/ 20
31 13
/2
2- 01
2- 3
2
4- 01
2- 3
2
6- 01
2- 3
2
8- 01
2- 3
10 20
- 2 13
12 20
-2 13
2/ 20
14 13
/
2/ 20
16 13
/
2/ 20
18 13
/
2/ 20
20 13
/
2/ 20
22 13
/
2/ 20
24 13
/2
01
3
1-
1120
1
31- 3
2
5- 013
12
7- 013
12
9- 013
111 201
3
-1
-2
0
1/
13 13
/
1/ 201
15
3
/
1/ 201
17
3
/
1/ 201
19
3
/
1/ 201
21
3
/2
0
1/
23 13
/
1/ 201
25
3
/
1/ 201
27
3
/
1/ 201
29
3
/2
0
1/
31 13
/2
01
22- 3
20
1
42- 3
20
1
62- 3
20
1
82- 3
20
10
13
-2
12 201
3
-2
2/ 201
14
3
/
2/ 201
16
3
/
2/ 201
18
3
/2
01
2/
20
3
/
2/ 201
22
3
/
2/ 201
24
3
/2
01
3
Twitter mentions trend
40000
35000
30000
25000
20000
15000
10000
5000
0
CENTRODESTRA
CENTRODESTRA
ARANCIONI
ARANCIONI
IBC
IBC
M5S
M5S
FD
FD
SCMONTI
People Talking About on Facebook
600000
500000
400000
300000
200000
100000
0
SCMONTI

6. Errors FB/TW/Polls
Single day of Data, Feb. 7th 2013

7. Evolution of the mean average error

8. Political surveys and Facebook PTA

9. Political surveys and Twitter Mentions

10. Media presence: is there a significant
correlation between the presence on the
(online) media and the electoral results.

11. Mentions trend/coalition
-B a UnoMattina
-B a Radio2 annuncia lettera per
restituzione IMU
-Rinvio processo Ruby per legittimo imp.
-B su Sanremo “rosso”
-Bersani ad Agorà
-Bersani su PD/MPS
-presentazione della squadra del csx
Berlusconi a ServizioPubblico
Berlusconi su Mussolini
e leggi razziali
80,00%
-Patto Monti/Bersani anti-Berlusconi
-Videomessaggio di Monti su Fb
-Monti a Skytg24 “no a unioni gay”
70,00%
-Monti a OttoeMezzo
e UnoMattina
-Monti svela il logo
di “Scelta Civica”
60,00%
-Puppato ad Agorà
-Renzi/Bersani a Firenze
-Scontro Bersani/Grillo
-Scontro Bersani/Maroni
-Monti apre campagna.
“riforme radicali”
“via gli incapaci”
“voto ad erasmus”
50,00%
-IBC in piazza a Milano
-Scontro Bersani/Grillo
su Casa Pound e reddito citt.
-Bersani “smacchiamo il giaguaro”
-Tsunamitour a Genova e Savona
-Berl su Grillo “pericolo per la democrazia”
-Grillo annulla intervista a Sky
Proposta shock
su IMU
40,00%
30,00%
20,00%
10,00%
CENTRODESTRA
SCMONTI
IBC
M5S
FD
ARANCIONI
/1
3
/1
3
/0
2
20
18
/0
2
/1
3
/1
3
16
/0
2
/1
3
/0
2
14
/0
2
/1
3
12
10
/0
2
/1
3
/1
3
08
/0
2
/1
3
/0
2
06
04
/0
2
/1
3
/1
3
02
/0
2
/1
3
/0
1
31
29
/0
1
/1
3
/1
3
27
/0
1
/1
3
/0
1
25
/0
1
/1
3
23
21
/0
1
/1
3
/1
3
19
/0
1
/1
3
/0
1
17
15
/0
1
/1
3
/1
3
13
/0
1
/1
3
/0
1
11
/0
1
/1
3
09
07
/0
1
/1
3
/1
3
/0
1
05
/0
1
03
01
/0
1
/1
3
0,00%

12. new spaces for politcal debates
avg comments per user
zerolikers: users who never “liked” any
content published on a specific page but
nevertheless commented on that page.
likers
zerolikers

13. 4
Giannino
Grillo
Monti
Vendola
0
% zerolikers over total
users
0.35
avg comments by
zerolikers
0
Berlusconi Bersani
Berlusconi Bersani
Giannino
Grillo
Monti
Vendola

14. 0.60
% comments by
zerolikers
0
Berlusconi Bersani
Giannino
Grillo
Monti
Vendola