Breen web presence the highest in Clare

JAMES Breen, John Hillery, Michael McNamara and Timmy Dooley are ranked one, two, three and four in terms of Clare General Election candidate web visibility. But what does this really mean and will it translate to votes?

NUIG student David Dolphin has developed an algorithm, which examines the number of times election candidates are mentioned in Irish websites, blogs and online news articles. The system then analyses the data and puts it into a coherent rank, which he features on his website TD2011.com.
“The way it works is I go to Google and look for the total number of web articles, blogs and news articles but I am only looking at entries since the election was announced. There are three separate searches – just websites, just news, just blogs. Then I get the total results for each of those three categories for each of the General Election candidates and I adjust them so they are all to the one scale,” Mr Dolphin outlined.
“The reason for this adjustment is that people could be mentioned on websites anywhere from say 500 to 200,000 times. Then news posts might be between 500 and 800 say, so I multiply this by a number to get it to the same scale, with each candidates’ visibility represented by a number between one and 10, otherwise Micheal Martin and Enda Kenny might have scores of eight say and everyone else might be 0.000000 something,” he explained.
While web visibility does not necessarily equate to votes, it is a direct measurement of candidates’ profiles on a very widely used medium, the internet.
“Web presence is growing in importance for candidates, certainly. If you looked at RTÉ’s Prime Time debate earlier this week, it was followed on RTÉ 2 by The Eleventh Hour, which discussed some of the immediate feedback on the three leaders on Twitter. Not only that but if you only get a leaflet from a candidate, then you will only get the positive side of their policies. The smaller candidates might not have enough of a profile to be discussed in the mainstream media so the web is the next place to look. With websites, news articles and blog entries you get very varied sources and content so the web is a levelling tool in that way because you don’t have the same barriers as you have with traditional media,” Mr Dolphin outlined.
“If a voter doesn’t get someone calling to their door canvassing them or dropping in a leaflet they will usually go to the web to see what a candidate stands for. If someone has just two mentions online, it will be a very general overview of their policies. If they are mentioned in lots of articles you find out more about their policies and their issues so the electorate can get a better view of everything they stand for and represent,” he added.
A high rating, therefore, means that the electorate can find numerous sources of information on different topics or stances relating to candidates. TD2011.com shows a list of candidates in order of their web visibility.
Mr Dolphin’s logarithm results show that his search for Independent councillor James Breen returned nine news stories, nine blog posts and 541 site mentions. Dr John Hillery featured in eight news stories, six blogs and 555 sites. Timmy Dooley was the only candidate to find himself on more websites.
According to TD2011.com, the top five candidates with regard to web visibility are the party leaders, Enda Kenny, Micheal Martin, Eamon Gilmore, Gerry Adams and John Gormley, in that order. After that it is mainly front-bench spokespeople and government ministers.
In Clare, Independent candidate James Breen registers as having the highest-profile web presence, followed closely by Fianna Fáil election debutant Dr John Hillery. They rank 155th and 171st nationally. Labour’s Michael McNamara at 215th is ahead of sitting Fianna Fáil TD Timmy Dooley. Brian Meaney from the Green Party has greater web visibility than Fine Gael’s Tony Mulcahy, who is followed by party colleague deputies Pat Breen and Joe Carey. The Clare candidate with the lowest ranking for web visibility is Independent Patrick Brassil.