Media analysis: Irish general election 2020 – 100 days milestone

Media analysis: Irish general election 2020 – 100 days milestone

We marked 100 days since the general election this week by having a quick look at the Truehawk Media Irish politics in media tracker.

We’ve had many firsts in 2020, not least a unique general election and a historic performance by Sinn Féin. Despite a global pandemic interrupting progress, there is much frustration that we are still relying on a caretaker government.

In our previous analysis, share of media voice, especially on Twitter, seemed to correlate with voter behaviour and general public mood, so we thought worth taking a glance at progress by party and party leader in terms of media exposure/voice.

We started this search after polls closed Saturday February 8th and ran the searches up to midnight on Monday May 18th. As per previous #GE2020 analysis, we isolated press and online news media as our set of classic or one-way media, and also interactive social media via Twitter.

Sinn Féin gained a much higher share of voice with the inclusion of Twitter, but ranked 3rd behind Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil when we isolate press and online news media. The Green Party performed much better when we focus only on press and online. Sinn Féin clearly getting most mentions on Twitter versus other parties.

Total media items examined here = 544k+ (27.6 press & online).

Share of media voice for leading parties since general election, comparing two sets of media channel

The same disparity is evident when looking at party leaders. The below chart represents all mentions in Irish print and online media as well as Twitter for each, with a massive reduction overall from February to May. We exclude Eamon Ryan (Green Party) here.

Mary Lou McDonald has a sizeable voice with inclusion of Twitter and she had strongest share of media voice in February 2020.

VOLUME OF MEDIA BY MONTH (PRESS, ONLINE, TWITTER) FEB 8TH 22:00 – MAY 18TH 23:59

However, as we examine share of press and online media in isolation for party leaders,  it’s not even close in Covid-19 months from March onwards, as as Leo Varadkar dominates the news agenda. Roughly a third of total media during March, April and May to date in relation to party leaders here mentioned the coronavirus.

VOLUME OF MEDIA BY MONTH (PRESS & ONLINE) FEB 8TH 22:00 – MAY 18TH 23:59

But as always, context is everything. See results for Simon Harris here when total volumes of media mentions are lined up against party leaders. The high volume here for Minister Harris is from Twitter which contributed 98% of coverage for him. Interactions were enormous for him too, reaching a height of 47.7million interactions in March on tweets mentioning Simon Harris or his Twitter handle.

TOTAL VOLUME OF MEDIA (PRESS, ONLINE, TWITTER) FEB 8TH 22:00 – MAY 18TH 23:59

This is but a quick volume review without taking time to look into all messaging and meaning, but if you would like to examine any of these results further or look at news monitoring, benchmarking and media trackers for coronavirus or your business please get in touch.

Our real-time interactive tracker will give you instant performance measures.