What did Twitter gain from #elect_uain Ukraine

Vitaliy Moroz, Internews Ukraine

Igor Zapadenko, Khmelnytsky portal

What is ElectUA?

- ElectUA is a brief name for All-Ukrainian Twitter Broadcasting of Presidential Elections-2010 in Ukraine;

- Streaming of all tweets with special hash tags from different regions to separate platform;

- 200+ participants as total involved;

- A project by Internews Ukraine funded by U-media project, Internews Network

What is ElectUA? Web-site:

http://electua.org/

How was it launched?

- March’09 - launch of MediaNext. The project on development of new media by EJC and Internews Ukraine #medianext_ua

- June-July’09 – conducting 1st sessions of trainings

ABC of new media. New media skills for journalists and media activists;

- Тwitter is one of key topics for teaching

Initial steps by ElectUA. Questions:

What do we plan to reach?

What is our conception/working plan?

Which hash tags do we choose?

Which people do we work with?

Launching a web-site: www.electua.org

Selection of key regions

• Initial suggestions:• • - Zakarpatska• - Ivano-Frankivska• - Zhytomyrska• - Myhailivska• - Luganska

• Final regions:

te .zp .zt .od .lg

Selection of participants

• Launching al blog electua.blogspot.com• Registration of120 participants throught Google Docs

Promotion in new media - Тwitter

Working account:

@medianext_ua + #elect_test and later #elect_ua

Personal account of Internews Ukraine staff:

@insider_ua @didych @npedchenko

+ official account of project @elect_ua

Promotion: group in Facebook

Promotion: Initiatives by participants. Blogs

Promotion: Initiatives by participants

Promotion: Initiatives by participants

Twitter-workshops for other users beside the project

Promotion: Initiatives by participants

Export of twi-feeds #elect_ua on www.elect.ua and other web-sites

Example: www.proskurov.info

Promotion: Initiatives by participants

Team of #elect_ua planned to report in both 1st and 2nd rounds of elections

Results: #elect_ua became official hash tag of elections in Ukraine

Just after 1st round by popularity

Results: #elect_ua became key hashtag of elections in Ukraine

#elect_ua was used by many others users, not just participants

Results: #elect_ua became official hash tag of elections in Ukraine

…someone became to spam - to use #elect_ua for any other events but not elections

It show #elect_ua became popular

Positive feedback

Positive feedback

Results of 1st round Number of links in: Yandex – 5451, Google – 4 660

Results of 2nd round: Number of links on #elect_sos: Yandex –374

#elect_sos marks tweets related to attempts of election fraud and how to avoid it

Results of 1 round. Discussion on number of tweets

How do search engines work and which data do they provide?

Results of 1 round: Discussion on number of tweets

During 2nd round of elections – about 15 000 unique tweets

As of March 2010 – 18 840 unique tweets

and 20 000 – of all posts in blogs

We chose best participants…

…based on:

- Twi reports

- Photo and video

- tweets on abuses

#elect_sos

What did Twitter gain from ElectUA?

• Development if social skills of participants • More wider use of hash tags• Raised interest to social issues like elections and

accountability• Closer ties among twi-people• Your opinion?

(we asked participants of ElectUA during follow-up meeting)

- Interest in social media in the regions - Merging between old and new media

- Showed how politicians use Twitter

What did Twitter gain from ElectUA?

• As a resource to inform audience, links to auidience• Instrument to observe – watchdog• Help from audience in hard situations on polling stations• Informing – to see the whole situation through Twitter• Interest from abroad – US, Canada• Chance to spread news immediately• Links between Twitter and “serious” media

ElectUA after 2010. What is next?

• Wave of civic activism on the local level (public events, flash mobs etc.) Now public could learn from local witnesses and citizen journalists;

• The experience of #elect_ua to be used in following local elections 2010-2011;

• Watchdogs for new President of Ukraine appeared – example:#nash_yanyk

Thanks!

@cvirk @vaita @alek_ya @gorodetskaya @netocrat

@ovsianik @mk_news @ezhurov @Gregor_ARK

@FART_39 @dnepryanka @MediaJourn @dancingwindy

@grebionkin @rozdum @godetsky

@neman44 @elect_dn @voinova @nizkodubova

@oko_ua @XAHAC @khanasV @ternopolyanyn @kminfo

@retwittka + dozens of Twitter users!

Thanks for attention!

Vitaliy Moroz @insider_ua @medianext_ua www.internews.ua

Igor Zapadenko @kminfo www.proskurov.info