The ELECTIONS sub-section of Wholeads.eu is an interactive platform aiming to provide reliable information regarding the relative popularity of political leaders and parties in a given country before an important election date. Such elections could for instance be presidential, parliamentary or regional and local ones.
The outcomes obtained do not constitute a definite prediction about the electoral results of leaders and parties. In other words, such rankings do not automatically translate in votes or intentions to vote. Rather, such measurements and visualisations provide an overall picture and show a tendency about the electoral potential of a given leader and party. They also demonstrate the ways how individual campaigns are carried out and covered by different kinds of media.
The information is typically gathered from a number of – usually more than 20 – media sources (traditional, broadcast, social media and others), which are representative of the public sphere landscape of a given political system, i.e. a country. Other objective and quantifiable factors could also occasionally be taken into account. However, information is collected "as it comes" and is not subject to human intervention.
The main advantages of carrying out such measurements and visualisation via the ELECTIONS sub-section of Wholeads.eu is that they are reliable, cheap and fast compared to more traditional public opinion surveys. This process is also not subject to possible political interference and may provide a rapid snapshot of some of the key political tendencies in a society. Last, but not least, it could be used to give a feedback to campaigning leaders and parties about their strengths and weaknesses in waging an electoral operation.
