External influencers dominate Twitter during African elections – study

For its fourth study titled How Africa Tweets, Portland, an international communications agency strategically analyzed thousands of Twitter nicknames to determine the location and profession of the most influential voices that drove the conversations on Twitter in 10 recent African elections. The study assessed the main hashtags used in the elections in Angola, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Rwanda, Senegal and Somaliland between June 2017 and March 2018 and analyzed the influencers of these groups. conversations. and accounts campaigning for a cause or problem – those women who were encouraged to vote – were the most influential Twitter voices during the election.

Notably, politicians and political parties were less influential, representing less than 10% of influence. in 9 of the 10 elections studied.

The main conclusions of the Portland study were:

1) The majority (53%) of the dominant voices from outside the country where the elections were contested. Of these external voices, on average just over half (54%) came from outside of Africa. The United States, the United Kingdom and France, in this order, welcomed the most influential non-African voices that shaped the electoral conversations on Twitter. While South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya were the most influential African countries. In Liberia and Equatorial Guinea, voices from outside the continent – particularly from the United States – accounted for most of the influential voices in the election.

2) Bots and accounts displaying mechanical behavior were active for all elections. In Kenya, bots accounted for a quarter of influential voices. By contrast, in Rwanda, bots accounted for only 4% of influential voices. Throughout all the elections, the bots served mainly to agitate, pushing negative narratives on the major problems, the candidates and the electoral anomalies perceived. After the elections, many bots saw their electoral content removed, some turning to talks outside of Africa.

3) Politicians and political parties are not the main drivers of conversations in their countries. much greater influence. In Kenya, the number of politicians influencing the discussion on Twitter has doubled between the first and second elections, but still has not reached 10%. In Senegal, no politician has been identified among the influential handgrips. However, there was one notable exception in Rwanda where 1 out of 3 influential handles was a political account – the highest figure among all the elections analyzed.

4) Although politicians and political parties were not necessarily influential on Twitter, the most used hashtags around every election often included direct references to them, including #umaangolaparatodos (Angola) and #Weah (Liberia). Kenya was a clear exception, where the most important hashtags were either generic electionske2017 or focused on election issues, including #nowweknow and #noreformsnoelections.

5) Non-national media and journalists accounted for 1 out of 5 contributing to the discussion and debate around the ten elections. In Angola, this figure rose to 2 out of 5. Even in elections where journalists and media outlets shared a weaker influence, they remained the most authoritarian voices.

Robert Watkinson, Portland Associate for Africa, said: The first of its kind to systematically analyze which influencers shape the debate on Twitter in African elections. It reveals a complicated space in which multiple voices – often from outside the country in question – have an impact. For any organization wishing to engage its target audiences and shape the conversation in Africa, Twitter remains an influential platform for engaging institutional voices around key moments. "

Meanwhile, Portland partner and SPARC Manager (Strategy, Planning, Analytics, Research + Creative), Gregor Poynton said:" This is the first opinion leadership that Portland has launched utilizing the integrated expertise of our new SPARC unit.The team has designed a custom methodology using an advanced social intelligence tool and mapped each account. to understand the networks of influence behind every election.We are delighted to share our results today, which include a version of the dataset analyzed. "