Machine Learning & Election Campaigns

Ria Baldevia, Booz Allen Hamilton
Audience level: Novice
Topic area: Misc
South Korean company Fount AI's introduction of a political info chat bot, Rose, on KakaoTalk messenger indicates machine learning may play a significant role in future elections.

1. A study of Rose, a political chatbot in the 2017 South Korea presidential election cycle Ria Baldevia Data Intelligence Conference 2017 Jun 24 @riabaldevia
3. Activity Modes Field & Voter Contact 0) In person events 1) Volunteer sign-ups 2)Canvassing 3)Voting history 4)Mailers 5)Live phone calls or robocalls Technology 0) Websites 1) Mobile apps 2) Fundraising tech 3) Organizing and voter contact tech tools Marketing & PR 0)Traditional paid media 1)Earned media 2)Emails 3)Social media marketing 4)Grassroots events
6. App service: 대선 봇 Medium: Kakao Talk Messenger App name: 로즈 (Rose) Lifetime: 19th South Korean presidential election cycle Major information points: • Presidential candidate’s career information • Presidential campaign information • Voting schedule and location • SNS polling information
7. Digital Anthropology: South Korea
8. > 5 million
9. App service: 대선 봇 Medium: Kakao Talk Messenger App name: 로즈 (Rose) Lifetime: 19th South Korean presidential election cycle Major information points: • Presidential candidate’s career information • Presidential campaign information • Voting schedule and location • SNS polling information
10. Plus Friends on Kakao: A category for public figures and special contents/updates. 대선 봇: Rose Kakao Team Welcome message that is non-partisan. Encourages you to vote. Encourages you to invite your friends to join the voting process. Tasks 0) What are the hottest topics of the day for the campaign? 1)Who are the candidates? 2)Check/confirm polling place 3)Provide a map to my polling place 4)Help Process of engaging with Rose Notes: -Tonality and language were neutral. It is obvious the objective of this bot was to inform voters about issues and polling location. -No persuasion messaging program in the interactions.
11. • Rose’s objective: Analyze social network system interest and candidate selection by leveraging Kakao and its users. • Analyzes portal search volume (Daum, Naver, Twitter, etc.). • Factor in the quantity of internet news for each candidate. • Interesting note-- they consider these to be small variables: turnout rate and election day weather. Observations
12. • Although the primary objective of providing election information, they missed an opportunity to measure how responsive their engagements were: ◦ Did the user end up voting? A simple Get Out the Vote (GOTV) operation could have occurred with Rose confirming whether or not the user actually voted AFTER receiving voting location information. ◦ How effective was the Call to Action to vote over all? • Rose launched late in the election cycle, giving her less than 6 months to grow its base and ebb with the full election cycle. • There was no survey to offer input after the election cycle ended. Rose’s responses were put to rest (although Rose is still available to befriend.) Critiques
13. Activity Modes Field & Voter Contact 0) In person events 1) Volunteer sign-ups 2)Canvassing 3)Voting history 4)Mailers 5)Live phone calls or robocalls Technology 0) Websites 1) Mobile apps 2) Fundraising tech 3) Organizing and voter contact tech tools Marketing & PR 0)Traditional paid media 1)Earned media 2)Emails 3)Social media marketing 4)Grassroots events SNS Sweet spot
14. Use Possibilities Partisan Neutral Voter Engagement Evocative terms, leverage partisan voters database, opportunity scale Call to Action Purely informational Neutral language Messaging Highly partisan messages similar to email language and tone Neutral Early GOTV Great opportunity to target early voters and confirm if they voted before Eday Same GOTV Great opportunity to target traditional voters who did not early vote Same
15. 0) http://ikoreatimes.com/Article/view.aspx?p=9&aid=48058 1) http://biz.khan.co.kr/khan_art_view.html?artid=201704040921001&code=920 501 2) https://www.forbes.com/sites/elaineramirez/2017/01/31/nearly-100-of-househ olds-in-south-korea-now-have-internet-access-thanks-to-seniors/#203f357255 72 3) Kakao Messenger app 4) Screenshots from Rose app available References
16. A study of Rose, a political chatbot in the 2017 South Korea presidential election cycle Ria Baldevia Data Intelligence Conference 2017 Jun 24 @riabaldevia