It's all happening during the lead-up to the next primary, being held Jan. 21 in South Carolina. Every time a Facebook user posts about a candidate, Facebook's team will pick it up and determine whether the mention expresses favorable sentiment about the candidate. To do that, they'll be armed with new software that researchers use to determine opinion from text. They'll analyze every mention from Thursday until the primary.
In turn, they'll hand that data over exclusively to Politico, whose journalists will add insight and commentary. The first round of data is already available.
“Social media has forever changed the way candidates campaign for the presidency,” says John F. Harris, editor in chief of Politico. “Facebook has been instrumental in expanding the political dialogue among voters and we couldn't be more excited about the opportunity to offer our readers a look inside this very telling conversation.”
Sentiment analysis won't be the only element of the arrangement. Politico is taking advantage of Facebook's ability to provide data about its users, such as age and location. When combined with the near-ubiquitous nature of the social network, Facebook can become a unique space to conduct survey-based research.
Politico plans to tap directly into the data gold mine available on Facebook. Over the next 9 days, the website will be polling South Carolina Facebook users of voting age about the GOP candidates and hot issues of the day.
"This highly competitive primary season has demonstrated that technologies like Facebook enhance the connections and conversations that are happening every day between voters and the presidential candidates," says Joel Kaplan, vice president of U.S. public policy at Facebook. "Whether they are voting in early primaries, or just talking about the election, the candidates, and the issues with their friends and family, millions of Americans are actively engaged in the 2012 campaign. We’re pleased those conversations are happening on Facebook and that leading news sources like Politico are helping drive healthy discussion and debate."
The Facebook sentiment analysis and commentary will be posted on Politico.com, while the polling results will be posted on Politico's Facebook Page and on Facebook's own politics hub.