Mapping the Global Election Landscape on Social Media in 2024

Abstract

In 2024, half of the global population is expected to participate in elections, offering researchers a unique opportunity to study online information diffusion and user behavior. This study investigates the media landscape on social media by analyzing Facebook posts from national political parties and major news agencies across Europe, Mexico, and India. Our methodology identifies key topics and evaluates public interaction, reflecting broader trends in political engagement. Using Principal Component Analysis, we distil these topics to uncover patterns of correlation and differentiation. This approach reveals dominant themes that engage global audiences, providing critical insights into the interplay between public opinion and digital narratives during a major electoral cycle. Our findings highlight how different topics resonate across political spectrums, shaping political debate and offering a comprehensive view of the interaction between media content, political ideology, and audience engagement.

Figures (12)

• Figure 1: Topics discussed as share of total classified posts. The plurality of posts from political parties is about internal politics.
• Figure 2: Distribution of reactions.$(a)$ News outlets dataset and $(b)$ Parties dataset.
• Figure 3: Boxplots of love-angry scores received for each topic
• Figure 4: Most engaged topics in each country, as revealed by PCA.
• Figure 5: Biplot of news outlets grouped by engaged topics for countries with $n_c \geq 3$.