Forecasting with social media – Using Facebook likes to predict the results of the 2015 Finnish Parliamentary elections

Already one-third of the human population uses social media on a daily basis. The biggest social networking site Facebook has over billion monthly users. As a result, social media services are now recording unprecedented amount of data on human behavior. The phenomenon has certainly caught the attention of scholars, businesses and governments alike. Organizations around the globe are trying to explore new ways to benefit from the massive databases. One emerging field of research is the use of social media in forecasting. The goal is to use data gathered from online services to predict offline phenomena. Predicting the results of elections is a prominent example of forecasting with social media, but regardless of the numerous attempts, no reliable technique has been established. The objective of the research is to analyze how accurately the results of parliament elections can be forecasted using social media. The research examines whether Facebook “likes” can be effectively used for predicting the outcome of the Finnish parliament elections that took place in April 2015. First a tool for gathering data from Facebook was created. Then the data was used to create an electoral forecast. Finally, the forecast was compared with the official results of the elections. The data used in the research was gathered from the Facebook walls of all the candidates that were running for the parliament elections and had a valid Facebook page. The final sample represents 1131 candidates and over 750000 Facebook “likes”. The results indicate that creating a forecast solely based on Facebook “likes” is not accurate. The forecast model predicted very dramatic changes to the Finnish political landscape while the official results of the elections were rather moderate. However, a clear statistical relationship between “likes” and votes was discovered. In conclusion, it is apparent that citizens and other key actors of the society are using social media in an increasing rate. However, the volume of the data does not directly increase the quality of the forecast. In addition, the study faced several other limitations that should be addressed in future research. Nonetheless, discovering the positive correlation between “likes” and votes is valuable information that can be used in future studies. Finally, it is evident that Facebook “likes” are not accurate enough and a meaningful forecast would require additional parameters.

Naisten poliittinen rekrytoituminen vuoden 1995 eduskuntavaaleissa ja niiden ehdokasasettelussa

Abstract: Political recruitment of Finnish women in the 1995 parliamentary elections and candidate selection

Valsystem i lilleputtar: pluralitet och diffusion

Abstract: Elections in lilliputs: plurality and diffusion

Miten äänestäjät valitsevat puolueen?

Abstract: How electors choose thier party in general elections

Puolueiden vaalikampanjat vuoden 2004 europarlamenttivaaleissa

Abstract: Parties' campaigns in European elections of 2004

Kuka edustaa EU:n vastustajia? Euroopan parlamentin vaalit 2004

Abstract: Who represents Eurosceptical voters? The 2004 elections to the European Parliament

Strategia, relevanssi ja merkitys: televisiomainonnan kontekstuaalisuudesta vuoden 2004 eurovaalikampanjoissa

Abstract: Strategy, relevance and meaning: on the use of context in the Finnish TV spots for the European parliamentary elections

Vaalit ja verkko : verkkokampanjointi Sauli Niinistön eduskuntavaalikampanjassa 2007

Opinnäytetyö käsittelee kampanjointiviestintää eduskuntavaaleissa 2007 painottuen kampanjointikeinoihin verkossa. Itse olin keskeisesti mukana Sauli Niinistön eduskuntavaalikampanjassa työskentelemällä hänen kampanjansa tiimivastaavana ja kampanjatoimiston vetäjänä neljän kuukauden ajan. Niinistön kampanjassa käytettiin monipuolisesti hyödyksi Internetiä ja sen tarjoamia mahdollisuuksia. Muun nettikampanjoinnin lisäksi tuotettiin 19 uutisvideota. Tässä opinnäytetyössä tarkastelen Sauli Niinistön verkossa tapahtunutta vaalikampanjointia sekä Saulin Tietotoimiston Uutisia osana kokonaisuutta. Arvioin myös sitä, millaisia erilaisia kampanjointikeinoja ehdokkaat käyttävät verkossa ja miten ne toimivat Sauli Niinistön eduskuntavaalikampanjassa. Perehdyn myös tarkemmin näiden vaalien uutuuteen, verkkovideoihin sekä arvioin, millaista lisäarvoa nettiuutisilla saatiin Niinistön kampanjaan. Kontekstina työssäni on yleisesti kampanjakeinojen kehittyminen Internetissä 2000-luvun aikana. Verkosta on tullut entistä varteenotettavampi kampanjointipaikka sitä mukaa kuin äänestäjät ovat alkaneet kuluttaa entistä enemmän aikaa verkossa. Vaalikampanjoidenkin sisällön täytyy olla entistä ammattimaisemmin tuotettua. Vaalikampanjat käydään yhä enenevässä määrin median kautta. Median osuus on huomattava myös eduskuntavaaleissa, etenkin vaalipiireissä, joissa on paljon asukkaita. Tästä syystä kampanjaorganisaatiolta vaaditaan yhä enemmän viestintätaitoja. Organisaatiosta on löydyttävä ihmisiä, jotka ehdokkaan lisäksi voivat kommentoida kampanjaa eri välineille luontevasti. Moniosaajuuden merkitys siis korostuu myös vaalityössä.

Uuden osakeyhtiölain verovaikutukset

Suomen uusi osakeyhtiölaki tuli voimaan 1.9.2006. Tutkielmassa on selvitetty uuden osakeyhtiölain keskeisimpiä vaikutuksia osakeyhtiöiden ja niiden osakkaiden verotukseen. Tutkielmassa on tarkasteltu uuden osakeyhtiölain nimellisarvotonta pääomajärjestelmää, varojenjakotapoja sekä yritysjärjestelytilanteita yhtiö- ja vero-oikeudelliselta kannalta. Valtiovarainministeriön asettama yritysverotuksen kehittämistyöryhmä on muistiossaan ehdottanut muutoksia verolakeihin uuden osakeyhtiölain vuoksi. Työryhmä on ehdottanut mm. osinkoverotuksen alaa ja peitellyn osingonjaonverottamista laajennettavaksi ja laittoman varojenjaon verotusta kiristettäväksi. Tutkielmassa on tarkasteltu työryhmän ehdotuksia ja pohdittu ehdotusten vaikutusta käytännön yritystoimintaan elinkeinoverolain näkökulmasta. Työryhmän ehdotukset eivät kuitenkaan kata kaikkia tilanteita. OYL:ssa mahdollistetut uudet yritysmuodonmuutos- ja yritysjärjestelytilanteet eivät toistaiseksi ole toteutettavissa veroneutraalisti. Verolainsäädännön joustamattomuuden vuoksi useat uuden lain mahdollistamattoimintavaihtoehdot eivät ole yhtiöiden käytettävissä. Muutoksia verolakeihin on odotettavissa aikaisintaan vuoden 2007 eduskuntavaalien jälkeen. Ennen verolakien uudistamista verotuskäytäntö on epävarmaa, mikä tehokkaasti estää uusien toimintamahdollisuuksien toteuttamisen.

Kandidatbloggar i det finska presidentvalet 2006 : strategier och effekter

Abstract: Candidate blogs in the 2006 Finnish presidential elections : strategies and outcomes

Osakevaihto yhtiöoikeudessa ja vero-oikeudessa

Tutkielman tavoitteena on ollut selvittää, kuinka osakevaihto tulee toteuttaa, jotta vältetään luovutusvoittoverotus ja samalla noudatetaan säännöksiä suunnatusta apportista. Tämän selvittämiseksi on tutkittu erityisesti vero-oikeuden ja yhtiöoikeuden säännöksiä. Tutkimus on toteutettu lainopillisena tutkimuksena tutkien pääasiassa kansallisen lainsäädännön vaikutusta osakevaihtoon. Tarkoituksena on ollut analysoida lainsäädännön, kirjallisuuden ja oikeustapausten avulla yhtiöoikeuden ja vero-oikeuden asettamia mahdollisuuksia ja rajoituksia osakevaihdon toteuttamiseen. Oikeustapauksia on käytetty myös esimerkkeinä selventämään eräitä tulkinnanvaraisia kohtia arvioitaessa osakevaihtoa. Oikeusvertailua tutkielmassa on suoritettu vain yritysjärjestelydirektiivin ja kansallisen lainsäädännön eräiden tulkintaerojen osalta. Tutkielmassa havaittiin, että osakevaihdon huolellinen etukäteissuunnittelu on tärkeää, koska osakevaihdossa saatava verotuksen lykkääntymisen etu voidaan menettää sekä yhtiöoikeuden että vero-oikeuden säännösten perusteella.

Proportionality and Party Success in Europe

This thesis consists of four articles and an introductory section. The main research questions in all the articles are about proportionality and party success in Europe, at European, national or district levels. Proportionality in this thesis denotes the proximity of seat shares parties receive compared to their respective vote shares, after the electoral system’s allocation process. This proportionality can be measured through numerous indices that illustrate either the overall proportionality of an electoral system or a particular election. The correspondence of a single party’s seat shares to its vote shares can also be measured. The overall proportionality is essential in three of the articles (1, 2 and 4), where the system’s performance is studied by means of plots. In article 3, minority party success is measured by advantage-ratios that reveal single party’s winnings or losses in the votes to seat allocation process. The first article asks how proportional are the European parliamentary (EP) electoral systems, how do they compare with results gained from earlier studies and how do the EP electoral systems treat different sized parties. The reasons for different outcomes are looked for in explanations given by traditional electoral studies i.e. electoral system variables. The countries studied (EU15) apply electoral systems that vary in many important aspects, even though a certain amount of uniformity has been aspired to for decades. Since the electoral systems of the EP elections closely resemble the national elections, the same kinds of profiles emerge as in the national elections. The electoral systems indeed treat the parties differentially and six different profile types can be found. The counting method seems to somewhat determine the profile group, but the strongest variables determining the shape of a countries’ profile appears to be the average district magnitude and number of seats allocated to each country. The second article also focuses on overall proportionality performance of an electoral system, but here the focus is on the impact of electoral system changes. I have developed a new method of visualizing some previously used indices and some new indices for this purpose. The aim is to draw a comparable picture of these electoral systems’ changes and their effects. The cases, which illustrate this method, are four elections systems, where a change has occurred in one of the system variables, while the rest remained unchanged. The studied cases include the French, Greek and British European parliamentary systems and the Swedish national parliamentary system. The changed variables are electoral type (plurality changed to PR in the UK), magnitude (France splitting the nationwide district into eight smaller districts), legal threshold (Greece introducing a three percent threshold) and counting method (d’Hondt was changed to modified Sainte-Laguë in Sweden). The radar plots from elections after and before the changes are drawn for all country cases. When quantifying the change, the change in the plots area that is created has also been calculated. Using these radar plots we can observe that the change in electoral system type, magnitude, and also to some extent legal threshold had an effect on overall proportionality and accessibility for small parties, while the change between the two highest averages counting method had none. The third article studies the success minority parties have had in nine electoral systems in European heterogeneous countries. This article aims to add more motivation as to why we should care how different sized parties are treated by the electoral systems. Since many of the parties that aspire to represent minorities in European countries are small, the possibilities for small parties are highlighted. The theory of consociational (or power-sharing) democracy suggests that, in heterogeneous societies, a proportional electoral system will provide the fairest treatment of minority parties. The OSCE Lund Recommendations propose a number of electoral system features, which would improve minority representation. In this article some party variables, namely the unity of the minority parties and the geographical concentration of the minorities were included among possible explanations. The conclusions are that the central points affecting minority success were indeed these non-electoral system variables rather than the electoral system itself. Moreover, the size of the party was a major factor governing success in all the systems investigated; large parties benefited in all the studied electoral systems. In the fourth article the proportionality profiles are again applied, but this time to district level results in Finnish parliamentary elections. The level of proportionality distortion is also studied by way of indices. The average magnitudes during the studied periodrange from 7.5 to 26.2 in the Finnish electoral districts and this opens up unequal opportunities for parties in different districts and affects the shape of the profiles. The intra-country case allows the focus to be placed on the effect of district magnitude, since all other electoral systems are kept constant in an intra-country study. The time span in the study is from 1962 to 2007, i.e. the time that the districts have largely been the same geographically. The plots and indices tell the same story, district magnitude and electoral alliances matter. The district magnitude is connected to the overall proportionality of the electoral districts according to both indices, and the profiles are, as expected, also closer to perfect proportionality in large districts. Alliances have helped some small parties to gain a much higher seat share than their respective vote share and these successes affect some of the profiles. The profiles also show a consistent pattern of benefits for the small parties who ally with the larger parties.

Development of Russian Ports in The Gulf of Finland

Russia has been one of the fastest developing economic areas in the world. Based on the GDP, the Russian economy grew evenly since the crisis in 1998 up till 2008. The growth in the gross domestic product has annually been some 5–10%. In 2007, the growth reached 8.1%, which is the highest figure after the 10% growth in 2000. Due to the growth of the economy and wage levels, purchasing power and consumption have been strongly increasing. The growing consumption has especially increased the imports of durables, such as passenger cars, domestic appliances and electronics. The Russian ports and infrastructure have not been able to satisfy the growing needs of exports and imports, which is why quite a large share of Russian foreign trade is going through third countries as transit transports. Finnish ports play a major role in transit transports to and from Russia. About 15% of the total value of Russian imports was transported through Finland in 2008. The economic recession that started in autumn 2008 and continues to date has had an impact on the economic development of Russia. The export income has decreased, mainly due to the reduced world market prices of energy products (oil and gas) and raw minerals. Investments have been postponed, getting credit is more difficult than before, and the ruble has weakened in relation to the euro and the dollar. The imports are decreasing remarkably, and are not forecast to reach the 2008 volumes even in 2012. The economic crisis is reflected in Finland's transit traffic. The volume of goods transported through Finland to and from Russia has decreased almost in the same proportion as the imports of goods to Russia. The biggest risk threatening the development of the Russian economy over long term is its dependence on export income from oil, gas, metals, minerals and forest products, as well as the trends of the world market prices of these products. Nevertheless, it is expected that the GDP of Russia will start to grow again in the forthcoming years due to the increased demand for energy products and raw minerals in the world. At the same time, it is obvious that the world market prices of these products will go up with the increasing demand. The increased income from exports will lead to a growth of imports, especially those of consumer goods, as the living standard of Russian citizens rises. The forecasts produced by the Russian Government concerning the economic development of Russia up till 2030 also indicate a shift in exported goods from raw materials to processed products, which together with energy products will become the main export goods of Russia. As a consequence, Russia may need export routes through third countries, which can be seen as an opportunity for increased transit transports through the ports of Finland. The ports competing with the ports of Finland for Russian foreign trade traffic are the Russian Baltic Sea ports and the ports of the Baltic countries. The strongest competitors are the Baltic Sea ports handling containers. On the Russian Baltic Sea, these ports include Saint Petersburg, Kaliningrad and, in the near future, the ports of Ust-Luga and possibly Vyborg. There are plans to develop Ust-Luga and Vyborg as modern container ports, which would become serious competitors to the Finnish ports. Russia is aiming to redirect as large a share as possible of foreign trade traffic to its own ports. The ports of Russia and the infrastructure associated with them are under constant development. On the other hand, the logistic capacity of Russia is not able to satisfy the continually growing needs of the Russian foreign trade. The capacity problem is emphasized by a structural incompatibility between the exports and imports in the Russian foreign trade. Russian exports can only use a small part of the containers brought in with imports. Problems are also caused by the difficult ice conditions and narrow waterways leading to the ports. It is predicted that Finland will maintain its position as a transit route for the Russian foreign trade, at least in the near future. The Russian foreign trade is increasing, and Russia will not be able to develop its ports in proportion with the increasing foreign trade. With the development of port capacity, cargo flows through the ports of Russia will grow. Structural changes in transit traffic are already visible. Firms are more and more relocating their production to Russia, for example as regards the assembly of cars and warehousing services. Simultaneously, an increasing part of transit cargoes are sent directly to Russia without unloading and reloading in Finland. New product groups have nevertheless been transported through Finland (textile products and tools), replacing the lost cargos. The global recession that started in autumn 2008 has influenced the volume of Russian imports and, consequently, the transit volumes of Finland, but the recession is not expected to be of long duration, and will thus only have a short-term impact on transit volumes. The Finnish infrastructure and services offered by the logistic chain should also be ready to react to the changes in imported product groups as well as to the change in Russian export products in the future. If the development plans of the Russian economy are realized, export products will be more refined, and the share of energy and raw material products will decrease. The other notable factor to be taken into consideration is the extremely fast-changing business environment in Russia. Operators in the logistic chain should be flexible enough to adapt to all kinds of changes to capitalise on business opportunities offered by the Russian foreign trade for the companies and for the transit volumes of Finnish ports, also in the future.