Abstract:
In this study, we investigate as well as draw comparison between the utilization of Twitter by PTI chairman, Imran Khan and PML-N next-in-line assumed heir as well as PML-N Central Executive Committee member; Maryam Nawaz, during the electoral campaigns of the 2013 Pakistan general elections. The dynamics of both political campaigns held by the personal twitter accounts of Maryam Nawaz and Imran Khan were analyzed in a comparative framework under the theoretical boundaries of the Agenda Setting theory by examining their twitter feeds. Tweets associated with core public interest issues of Pakistan of a specified time-period between 1st January, 2013 till 30th April, 2013 pertaining to Terrorism, Electricity and Corruption will be given primary preference in the analysis. Manually-annotated data consisting of tweets posted via each candidate between the timeline of January 2013 leading up April 2013 were analyzed in a comparative manner via the Advanced Search tool of Twitter, and selected via time series analysis. The results denotedfrom the collected data showed, that during the so-labelled, first ever of its kind in Pakistan 'Twitter-elections' MaryamNSharif although posted a comparatively higher number of tweets with an aggregate of 264 however; a chose to keep a majority of them in the form of retweets or reply to tweets in which primary candidates of PML-N or herself were tagged. 8.7% of her aggregate tweets were dedicated to highlighting the preselected issues of Corruption, Electricity and Terrorism. While ImranKhanPTI dedicated 26.45% of his total aggregate tweets of 223 for the cause highlighting the issues of Corruption, Electricity and Terrorism.
