UK: Loughborough University created new app VoteBee to track the nation’s mood about the General Election through Twitter

A new app created by academics at Loughborough University enables you to track the nation’s mood about the General Election through Twitter.

Leicestershire, 25-3-2015 — /EuropaWire/ — VoteBee uses the ground-breaking Emotive Engine to search for tweets about the key political parties, policies and politicians in the run up to May 7. The system can analyse up to 3,000 tweets a second using just one computer.

From these tweets it extracts a direct expression of one of eight basic emotions: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise, shame and confusion.

VoteBee, and the Emotive Engine, have been developed by Professor Tom Jackson, Dr Martin Sykora and Dr Suzanne Elayan from the Centre for Information Management, based in the School of Business and Economics.

The app enables you to see what people are tweeting about, including images, as well giving you an insight into how they are feeling about the latest news, campaigning and policy announcements.

Professor Jackson explains: “The app is a great way to get instant insight into the emotions that are invoked from politician’s speeches, news on policy releases or battle grounds like the NHS or Tax, or just what the general public are talking about when it comes to the General Election 2015.”

A free version of Votebee can be downloaded from Google Play and the Apple App Store. A paid version of the app, which offers more detailed data, can also be purchased.

Notes for editors

Loughborough is one of the country’s leading universities, with an international reputation for research that matters, excellence in teaching, strong links with industry, and unrivalled achievement in sport and its underpinning academic disciplines.

It has been awarded five stars in the independent QS Stars university rating scheme, putting it among the best universities in the world, and was named Sports University of the Year 2013-14 by The Times and Sunday Times. Loughborough is consistently ranked in the top twenty of UK universities in the Times Higher Education’s ‘table of tables’ and has been voted England’s Best Student Experience for six years running in the Times Higher Education league. In recognition of its contribution to the sector, Loughborough has been awarded seven Queen’s Anniversary Prizes.

In 2015 the University will open an additional academic campus in London’s new innovation quarter. Loughborough University in London, based on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, will offer postgraduate and executive-level education, as well as research and enterprise opportunities.

Contact for all media enquiries

Judy Wing

PR Manager
Loughborough University
T: 01509 228697
E: J.L.Wing@lboro.ac.uk

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UK: Loughborough University created new app VoteBee to track the nation’s mood about the General Election through Twitter