A System for Real-time Twitter Sentiment Analysis of 2012 U.S. Presidential Election Cycle

This paper describes a system for real-time analysis of public sentiment toward presidential candidates in the 2012 U.S. election as expressed on Twitter, a microblogging service. Twitter has become a central site where people express their opinions and views on political parties and candidates. Emerging events or news are often followed almost instantly by a burst in Twitter volume, providing a unique opportunity to gauge the relation between expressed public sentiment and electoral events. In addition, sentiment analysis can help explore how these events affect public opinion. While traditional content analysis takes days or weeks to complete, the system demonstrated here analyzes sentiment in the entire Twitter traffic about the election, delivering results instantly and continuously. It offers the public, the media, politicians and scholars a new and timely perspective on the dynamics of the electoral process and public opinion.