{"id":6630,"date":"2015-12-01T17:24:26","date_gmt":"2015-12-01T09:24:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/?p=6630"},"modified":"2015-12-01T17:24:26","modified_gmt":"2015-12-01T09:24:26","slug":"google-trends-and-the-last-minute-voter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/2015\/12\/01\/google-trends-and-the-last-minute-voter\/","title":{"rendered":"Google Trends and the Last Minute Voter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Guest post on joeam.com:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"1VcgqeMz7W\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/joeam.com\/2015\/12\/01\/google-trends-and-the-last-minute-voter\/\">Google Trends and the Last Minute&nbsp;Voter<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;Google Trends and the Last Minute&nbsp;Voter&#8221; &#8212; The Society of Honor by Joe America\" src=\"https:\/\/joeam.com\/2015\/12\/01\/google-trends-and-the-last-minute-voter\/embed\/#?secret=RF9EZ1y3pU#?secret=1VcgqeMz7W\" data-secret=\"1VcgqeMz7W\" width=\"525\" height=\"296\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>What is <em>Google Trends<\/em>?<\/strong><br \/>\nFrom <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Google_Trends\">wikipedia<\/a>: <em>\u201cGoogle Trends is a public web facility of Google Inc., based on Google Search, that shows how often a particular search-term is entered relative to the total search-volume across various regions of the world, and in various languages. The horizontal axis of the main graph represents time (starting from 2004), and the vertical is how often a term is searched for relative to the total number of searches, globally.\u201d<\/em><br \/>\n<strong>Why is this interesting?<\/strong><br \/>\nA survey\u00a0is\u00a0scientific but it takes\u00a0time to do and it takes\u00a0time to process. It costs a lot and, without releasing all the questions and the data, it is most valuable to the politician who has\u00a0all the variables. It\u00a0misleads\u00a0the common person who is ill equipped to question and dissect the data.<br \/>\n<em>Google Trends<\/em> is free and it is a public facility so anyone can verify the\u00a0results. It is almost real time which allows crafty people to use it as a leading indicator.<br \/>\n<strong>2004 Elections<\/strong><br \/>\nFirst let\u2019s take a look at the weeks prior to the 2004 elections through the lens of <em>Google Trends:<\/em><br \/>\n<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13018 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/societyofhonor.files.wordpress.com\/2015\/11\/gmavsfpj.gif?w=960&#038;h=518&#038;fit=960%2C518&#038;resize=525%2C283\" alt=\"GMAvsFPJ\" width=\"525\" height=\"283\" \/><br \/>\nWhat this shows is that, except for 1 week, FPJ had more searches than GMA until the first week of April and the last week of April when they were tied. \u00a0FPJ was ahead until\u00a0May 2-8 with\u00a0GMA overtaking FPJ for searches dated May 9-15.<br \/>\nWe have to look at the internet population during 2004. The penetration then of the internet were mostly through dial-up and internet shops [Source: \u201c<em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.internetlivestats.com\/internet-users\/philippines\/\">Internet Live Stats<\/a><\/em>\u201c].<br \/>\n<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13049 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/societyofhonor.files.wordpress.com\/2015\/12\/capture01.jpg?w=960&#038;h=504&#038;fit=960%2C504&#038;resize=525%2C276\" alt=\"Capture01\" width=\"525\" height=\"276\" \/><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nWe only had 4.5 Million internet users then but, if we remove non voters, I suspect this would be close to 2-3 Million voters. What we can see is that the Internet-Enabled Filipinos were really torn between the two candidates.<br \/>\n<strong>2010 Elections: Pnoy vs Erap vs Villar<\/strong><br \/>\nFast forward 6 years:<br \/>\n<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13020 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/societyofhonor.files.wordpress.com\/2015\/11\/villarvspnoyvserap.gif?w=960&#038;h=519&#038;fit=960%2C519&#038;resize=525%2C285\" alt=\"VillarVsPnoyVsErap\" width=\"525\" height=\"285\" \/><br \/>\nSome observations:<br \/>\nThe searches escalated with three distinct parts:\u00a0October to December | January to April | April to May<br \/>\nOctober started with Pnoy and Erap neck and\u00a0neck, and with Manny Villar a distant 3rd. Manny Villar\u2019s campaign was unique because it intelligently used the campaign components\u00a0of Party, Senatorial Slate and Partylist to promote the Presidential Candidate of the Party. However, Pnoy, riding in the glow of the Aquino name, coasted to high google searches while, curiously, Villar\u2019s and Erap\u2019s search volumes mirrored\u00a0each other up to the start of January.<br \/>\nFrom January to April,\u00a0Manny Villar became the front runner in terms of google searches. I attribute this to two things: (1) Villar\u2019s snappy campaign song was such an ear worm that it drove people to search for him online, and (2) Villar had a decent website and good fluff articles about his rise from poverty. When you see someone with such a compelling narrative, you want\u00a0to know more about him. This drives more google searches.<br \/>\nJanuary to April was not all roses for Villar because <em>Google Trends<\/em> are not always positive. The \u201ctruth campaign\u201d, or in real terms, the demolition squads of the other campaigns, went full blast. This may also have driven the google searches up.<br \/>\nWhat we do know from the data is that, by the end of April, Erap and Pnoy were rising and Villar had flat-lined.<br \/>\nMay search trends show us that Pnoy had overtaken Erap while Erap had overtaken Villar.\u00a0This makes me believe that, prior to <em>Facebook<\/em>, we\u00a0waited until\u00a0the last minute to decide who to vote for. When all the ads and all the TV guestings and all the newspaper articles have been read, we hunker down and search for compelling reasons to vote for someone. Yes,\u00a0there are people like members of the <em>Society of Honor<\/em> who read everything online and watch every interview, but the majority wait and decide during the last two weeks before the election.<br \/>\n<strong>Mar vs Binay<\/strong><br \/>\n<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13039 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/societyofhonor.files.wordpress.com\/2015\/12\/marvsbinay.gif?w=960&#038;h=519&#038;fit=960%2C519&#038;resize=525%2C285\" alt=\"MarVsBinay\" width=\"525\" height=\"285\" \/><br \/>\nThe graph showing Mar Roxas vs Jojo Binay made me think of that\u00a0\u201cLast Two Weeks conjecture.\u201d That conjecture\u00a0tells me that the campaign is long and, if I am\u00a0right, this race is far from over.<br \/>\n<strong>Last Two Weeks Conjecture and the Political Narrative<\/strong><br \/>\nWe\u00a0are biased by how we were trained, our religion, our experiences, our education and status. If people really avoid making the decision till the last two weeks, what does this warn\u00a0us about how the irresponsible\u00a0tabloid\u00a0media will affect the last minute deciders? When you are wanting for time,\u00a0there is less time for reflection and less time to figure out if people are honest about their intentions. There is less time to figure out if the points in a 20 point agenda contradict each other and there is less time to reflect on the impossibility of\u00a0a statement like <em>\u201cGinawa ko sa Makati gagawin ko sa buong Pilipinas\u201d<\/em> or \u201c<em>Nagawa ko na sa Davao gagawin ko sa Pilipinas\u201d.<\/em><br \/>\nPeople who are politically active have to make a stand. They have to make people care, whoever their candidate is. They have to help people understand why the candidate\u2019s\u00a0statements are true, that his plans are not drawings in the sand, not motherhood statements, fluff and nothing else.<br \/>\nRead, Watch, Meditate and Reflect. If I have one wish for our voters, that is my wish.<br \/>\n__________<br \/>\n<em>Note from author:<\/em> \u201cInspired by Nate Silver of <em><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/fivethirtyeight.com\/\">FiveThirtyEight<\/a><\/strong><\/em>\u201c<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Guest post on joeam.com: Google Trends and the Last Minute&nbsp;Voter &nbsp; What is Google Trends? From wikipedia: \u201cGoogle Trends is a public web facility of Google Inc., based on Google Search, that shows how often a particular search-term is entered relative to the total search-volume across various regions of the world, and in various languages. &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/2015\/12\/01\/google-trends-and-the-last-minute-voter\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Google Trends and the Last Minute Voter&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-election"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6630\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}