On Sunday, May 30th, 2010, The Sunday Independent ran a story detailing €81,015 claimed in expenses by Ivor Callely, Fianna Fáil Senator. A day later – following the Irish Independent Front Page story – online conversations about Callely began in earnest. O’Leary Analytics has examined the conversations that have taken place online, from May 30th to August 10th. Key findings include:
- Over 5,000 tweets / comments / Facebook messages / message board posts were published
- 27% of the comments came from individuals with a medium to high measure of influence
- Fianna Fáil is mentioned over 3,000 times
- “Controversy”, “suspended” and “investigation” are three of the most common words found in the content
THE TIMELINE
Some of the first social media discussions of Callely appeared on popular Cork Forum, The People’s Republic of Cork.
On the thread, titled “Big Welcome to Cork’s New Senator – Ivor Callely” the comments began in jest, encouraging Callely to learn “Corkish”. However, this initial tone was quickly replaced by anger and the first suggestions of prosecution were made.
Those five comments on Monday May 31st, were the first of what was soon to become a torrent. A day later, the total count of comments naming Callely was 61. The conversation was now spreading to Twitter, popular Irish message board Boards.ie and Irish political forum Politics.ie
Ivor Callely Day by Day Social Media Coverage: May – August 2010
When the Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, asked for a written explanation from Callely, the topic quickly began to dominate the social media sphere in Ireland. On Wednesday June 2nd 2010, three days after the article in the Sunday Independent, there were 584 mentions of the Senator in 24 hours. As well as the main discussion forums listed above, people began to debate the issue in mainstream news sources online, both in Ireland and internationally.
Not only were people commenting on the issues of expenses, there was an obvious and strong desire to ensure details were documented correctly. Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, was updated four times in the same 24-hour period as new details emerged in relation to the story. Each update was recorded and can be found here:
- Update 1 “On 8 December 2005, he resigned his cabinet post after an [[RTÉ News]] report that a building contractor involved in public contracts had painted his house for free in the early 1990s. He lost the next election but Bertie Ahern stood by him and appointed him to the Senate, following which he adjusted his domicile to Cork.”
- Update 2 “This had absolutley nothing to do with the fact that he could then claim increaded expenses for travel and overnights while attending the Senate”
- Update 3 “On 30 May 2010, it was revealed under a Freedom of Information Act request, that Callely had claimed expenses totalling €81,015 since 2007 for overnight and travel expenses to a house in [[County Cork]]”
- Update 4 “Whilst constantly embroiled in controversy Callely does not seem to contribute anything to political life in Ireland. He was appointed by ahern in an obvious “jobs for the boys” move.”
As the conversations continued online, Callely remained silent. However, when he did break his silence, to protest his innocence, at a committee investigating his Oireachtas expense claims, there was a significant spike in coverage – June 25th – 365 mentions. As well as the various conversations, the Press Association reported on the topic.
The next major spike occurred on July 14th, when Callely was suspended without pay for 20 days, following the enquiry. Again, the conversation spiked as people in Ireland reacted, online, to the latest development. On Twitter, journalists, political commentators and the general public were joined in the conversation by other politicians, including Ivana Bacik: “Ivor Callely just been censured – 20 days suspension. No debate but we oppose indefinite adjournment”
CONTENT OF THE CONVERSATIONS
When the content of the conversations is analysed, a clear picture emerges in terms of what people were talking about in relation to Callely. In the word cloud below, the most common words found in all 5,347 comments/tweets/messages/articles that mentioned Callely are represented.
Word Cloud of the Most Common Words in the Callely Conversations
After “Callely” himself (12,507 mentions) the next most prominent word was “expenses” (8,351 mentions). Other commonly occurring words included “controversial”/”controversy” (2,055 combined mentions), “suspended” (1,161) and “investigation” (1,519 mentions). For his party, Fianna Fail, it has been a controversy that is impossible to get away from. “Fianna Fáil” appeared more than 3,000 times in the coverage of Mr Callely to date.
WHO IS SAYING WHAT – AND WHO IS LISTENING?
When looking at the conversations surrounding the story, it is important to examine those who are talking, and their potential reach. For Callely, and all those associated with the scandal, the figures don’t make for pleasant reading.
Bar Chart of the Popularity of those talking about Ivor Callely online
Popularity, or “measure of influence”, is calculated by a series of algorithms, which takes into account multiple aspects of the individual authors online profile – including but not limited to: the number of followers they have on Twitter; the number of friends on Facebook; the number of posts on a message board such as Boards.ie or Politics.ie. The measure of influence of those talking about Ivor Callely ranges from 0 to 10, with 0 being the lowest.
- 27% of the comments (1,421) were made by people with a “measure of influence” of 5 or higher.
- 17% of the comments (886) were made by people with a “measure of influence” of 9 or 10.
Sentiment Surrounding the Scandal
It will come as little surprise to anyone who has read, listened or discussed this topic over the past number of months that the overwhelming sentiment in relation to Ivoe Callely is negative.
Ivor Callely Sentiment Analysis
Over 31% of the coverage was deemed negative or very negative. Sample negative comments included:
- Senator Dan Boyle seeking Callely’s resignation via RTE Twitter source
- Paul Gogarty of the Green Party made a formal complaint to An Garda Síochána about Callely via RTE Twitter source
- Liam Byrne on Boards.ie highlighted Minister for Enterprise and Innovation Batt O’Keeffe’s response to the issue
Some of the positive mentions included:
- Ursula Halligan on TV3 “There may well be an entirely innocent explanation for Ivor Callely’s extraordinary expenses”.
- Eamon Kelly felt honesty would be the best policy – “Ivor Callely would get more sympathy if he just put his hands up”.
- Cardinal Brady – an anonymous, satirical Twitter user – also came out in support of Callely – “Ivor Callely lived in at least two places at once. Surely he is nothing less than a Padre Pio for the 21st century. Respect”
CONCLUSION
The Callely saga is set to continue over the coming weeks and months. The most recent and serious allegations relate to his claim for almost €3,000 in mobile phone expenses using invoices from a company that went out of business a decade ago. The Sunday Tribune report that “Garda commissioner Fachtna Murphy will appoint a senior officer who will lead the probe“. The outcome of this investigation, and those by both the Fianna Fáil party and the Seanad committee, will ultimately determine Callely’s personal and political future. Whatever the result, the conversation, online, is set to continue.
Great stuff Stephen. It’s not really surprising Fianna Fail don’t escape from this unscathed. Interesting to note the ‘online calibre’ of those talking about Callely…it shows the extent of the outrage and disbelief at Callely’s actions. It really does get everyone talking!
Hi Julie, thanks for the comments. Fianna Fáil were always going to suffer, and the longer their internal investigation takes, the worse it will get. As for the potential reach of the audience – it’s clear that’s it’s not just noise – those talking are being heard.
Stephen, I just love reading your post like these. They are precise, concise and very informative. It does prove that politicians should keep their audience in mind and preferably interact with them through social media channels. Hopefully this particular story will have the desired effect of what – in my opinion – should happen: the senator apologizing, repaying the expenses and resign.
it’s clear that’s it’s not just noise – those talking are being heard.
where’s the evidence of that?
Thanks for the comments Sarah, glad to hear you enjoyed the post.
Hi Steve, thanks for taking the time to comment. The evidence comes from analysing the authors of the content. As mentioned in the post, 17% of the total comments – 886 – were made by individuals with a popularity ranking of 9 or 10. This means that the potential audience for these comments is very high, in comparison to the general “noise” coming from those with a lower popularity ranking. While it is impossible to calculate exactly how many people may have read an individual tweet or post, we can look at elements including the number of followers a twitter user has, or their level of interaction on a forum. These help to calculate the potential audience.
so what is the potential, or (calculated as near as can be ) audience?
For his party, Fianna Fail, it has been a controversy that is impossible to get away from. “Fianna Fáil” appeared more than 3,000 times in the coverage of Mr Callely to date.
out of 5,000 mentions? is that msm media or social comment? (coverage usually refers to extensive media coverage)
he’s fianna fail, we know that is that high or low? you say the its controversy that was impossible to get away from, suggesting they may have been trying to, so did people react more positively to ff/or seanad when they took some action, did they believe it when ministers made critical comments of ivor.
how did social media/networks respond to the expenses scandal, erm they responded by talking about it.
i just think again this is a listing of events responding to mainstream news/the seanad, i don’t think its stretches to analytics.
its stating the obvious the response was negative.
i’d prefer to see how many comments mentioned cowen, to see if they associated it with him or maybe bertie ahern or even haugheys name came up more.
It is impossible to calculate a single figure for the total body of over 5,000 posts/tweets/etc. However, to give you some examples of those who would feature in the top popularity ranking – Mark Little who posted this comment has over 8,000 followers on Twitter, and the potential audience for this tweet is therefore over 8,000. Similarly, RTE News also has over 8,000 followers on Twitter and this tweet also featured in the ’10′ popularity ranking.
ok so what does that mean then? ppl were interested in hearing what ff had to say, and clicked to see more detail?
u didn’t list the popular tweets in the post, so couldn’t figure the point of that bar chart. is popularity by retweets and re-posted links on bbs’?
so ppl with high influence by your reckoning are talking about him and lots of ppl of low influence are talking about him, again im not surprised? or informed really, maybe its your choice of subject, like your review of ryanair its no surprise they generate alot of their own media, maybe with this you needed to analyses what other national political stories were being talked about, or if ff was mentioned, what other issues were be mentioned and compare that with callely references.
lots of ppl follow rtenews ok and likewise their former main anchor of rtenews retweets it but mark little goes out of his way never to express an opinion on anything so *shrug*
Hi Stephen, great post & really interesting stats. I’m delighted to see that FF got got in the cross-fire and so they should. Thanks, Niall
It’s hardly surprising that Fianna Fáil are getting so much shrift in these articles. The likes of Ivor Callely didn’t spring from thin air but a culture that tacitly condones corruption and incompetence.
My ode to his departure:
http://rulehibernia.com/2010/08/good-riddance-callely/
Hi Stephen,
Interesting article and interesting site, what social media monitoring tools do O’leary Analytics use? I’m final year in University and Media Analytics is a path I’m interested in greatly. Keep up the good work.