The Twitter
#Oscars Index, created in January 2013, was designed to help predict the winners to the 85th Academy Awards by measuring the frequency of conversations on a specific nominee on Twitter at any given day.
The measure of sentiment assumes that if, for example, the index scores a film 80, there is around 80 percent positive sentiment toward the said film compared to the others posted about it.
While it is not the be-all, end-all of the awards (of course, the winners are still decided on by a qualified and carefully selected group of people), it reflects the pulse of the general public, or at least those with active Twitter accounts.
Still, it's nice to know when the actual awardees had been forecast by how they fared on Twitter; thereby showing that social media, hashtags specifically, IS a strong channel by which choices can be measured.
On February 24, before the announcement, the Best Picture nominee with the highest score was Silver Linings Playbook, 92, followed by Life of Pi, 90. The winner was Argo, which scored 89.5.
Watch how
#Argo shoots up right after the announcement.
For Best Actor and Best Actress, at the top were Daniel-Day Lewis, 93.5 and Quvenzhane Wallis, 94. The winners were Lewis and Jennifer Lawrence, who surprisingly got only 56.5 on the Twitter index.
For Best Supporting Actor and Actress, at the top were Christoph Waltz, 89.5, and Sally Field, 91.5. Actual winners were Waltz and Hathaway, who in the index got a close 91.
Best Director according to Twitter was Ang Lee, 90.5, who had won.
Congratulations to the winners!
