The latest edition of IMANI Africa’s Public Understanding and Literacy for Sentiment and Election analysis (PULSE) has projected, for the first time, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) leading the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) in positive sentiments.
The analysis which covers the period between February 26 and March 26, 2024, says “the NDC has dropped from 10.22% to 9.50% while the NPP increased marginally to 10.71% from 10.22%.”
“People that spoke of NPP negatively fell by almost 13% (12.89%) from around 30.7% a month earlier to about 17.81%, which is a huge drop in negative sentiments,” the report indicated further.
IMANI went on to say that the factors that contributed to the decline in the negative comments are not known yet.
“It could be that the social media teams are being very proactive in portraying positive feelings among their following leading to more favourable posts instead of negative ones,” it stated.
Find below the full report:
1. The period under observation for this edition of the report is from the 26th of February to the 26th of March 2024
2. For the first time since the inception of IMANI PULSE, the NPP has an edge over the NDC in lesser negative sentiments on social media.
3. NPP has taken a lead in positive sentiment on the social media posts monitored. The NDC has dropped from 10.22% to 9.50% while the NPP increased marginally to 10.71% from 10.22%
4. Public negative sentiment has significantly dropped for both. Purely negative sentiment over the period decreased for both party candidates. People that spoke of NPP negatively fell by almost 13% (12.89%) from around 30.7% a month earlier to about 17.81%, which is a huge drop in negative sentiments.
5. The NDC also had their sentiments fall albeit about a quarter of the margin of NPP’s fall. This led them to an around 18.64% negative sentiment rate from 21.86% last month.
6. A little bit of analysis will be required to determine what significant factors led to the sharp decreases in negative sentiment. It could be that the social media teams are being very proactive in portraying positive feelings among their following leading to more favourable posts instead of negative ones.
7. One issue worthy of mention is the large negative sentiments with relation to the SONA 2024, where a quote shared on Joy News and other media outlets originating from Hajia Ayamba, saying that Dr Bawumia should be rejected because he is a terrible mate and will not be a good driver was had a whooping 631,000 engagements on social media and was shared from JOYNEWS’s website a total of 1446 times from that primary source alone. Hajia Ayamba’s quote led to a huge singular social reach in favour of candidate Mahama.
8. Several mentions have attributed to some positivity for both parties and less negativity. The launch of the One Student One Tablet Smart Schools initiative triggered a lot of mentions. There was a spike in mentions due to fulfillment of Bawumia’s promise of 1 student one Tablet generating buzz on TikTok with hashtags #itispossible, #Boldsolutionsforthefuture and #Bawumia2024.
9. Another spike in mentions due to Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the 2024 NPP Presidential Candidate, engaging with traders in Sunyani, Bono Region, alongside popular hashtags #Bawumia2024 and #itispossible.
10. The mentions that had the most extensive reach came from: tiktok.com (authors: officialutvghana), youtube.com (authors: Magraheb TV).
11. For Candidate Mahama, on March 07, there was a walk and a dance challenge that led to massive engagement to the tune of around 243,000. Additionally, a controversial event around the pronouncements of Dr. Kwesi Ahwoi, one of the main elders of the NDC party, caused a spike in mentions on the 25th of March 2024.
12. This month, an almost comparative sample of both candidates was taken to ensure a more granular comparison of metrics with relation to mentions and engagement. This is also because additional datasets were available due to improved and increased mentions from the Mahama campaign, allowing for more mentions to be sampled.
13. People are also being more responsive to party related events and several issues will be coming up in future sentiment analyses, where sentiments towards specific issues will be analyzed to see if they have bearings on overall sentiment. These will make for more interesting reading of the space.
14. Interestingly however, it seems NDC’s social media reach has also improved with even with less direct mentions, while the Advertising Revenue Equivalent also shows that a lot of content is being generated and engaged with among NDC related issues.
15. This shows that NDC related issues are also gaining a lot of traction on social media and also non-social media websites and cyberspace.
16. The independent hopeful Nana Kwame Bediako still remains the most talked about or dominant in terms of social media attention. His social media following has grown massively as well as the frequency and length of engagement due to his recent listening tour and related media interviews, which puts him literally as the most visible force among the other contenders. His main Hashtag, #thenewforce, has garnered many mentions and positive sentiments of just over 50% of all related mentions, while negative sentiment is around 15% of all mentions and comments. The depth of his reach from a small sample of handles suggests a well-coordinated and organic social media engagement.
17. The other contenders still do not have enough data to come up in any analysis as of now.
The list of other contenders are:
Alan Kyerematen – Butterfly Movement
People’s National Convention (PNC)
Convention People’s Party (CPP)
Hassan Ayariga – All People’s Congress
Progressive People’s Party (PPP)
