The Role of Social Media Sentiment in Amassing Political Support

Oh, C., & Kumar, S. (2017). How Trump won: The role of social media sentiment in political elections. PACIS 2017 Proceedings, 48, 1-13. Retrieved from http://aisel.aisnet.org/pacis2017/48

In this article, Oh and Kumar highlights the role of social media sentiment in amassing political support by focusing on the 2016 US Presidential Election. The authors attempt to convince their readers that social media sentiment can give political leaders considerable leverage over their opponents when effectively used.  The authors emphasize that Donald Trump was able to beat Hillary Clinton during the 2016 US Presidential Election since he was able to elicit a higher volume of public discourse than his opponent. Overall, Trump had a higher number of positive and negative tweets; hence, it not hard to see why he won the popular vote easily. Notably, Trump would use a positive tone to address various issues of the economy such as jobs, employment, and taxes. In this way, his social media tone influenced followers to support him because he shared their sentiments.  Conversely, Trump mostly used a negative tone to criticize his opponent and weaken her political position among the middle-class populace. This article is helpful in understanding how leaders’ tone can influence their follower’s support.  

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