OTTAWA - Online buzz around the Canadian election is looking like a unilingual debate -- with French-language posts accounting for only about two per cent of election-related messages on the Twitter site.
The Canadian Press analysis, done with digital affairs strategist Mark Blevis, suggest close to 30,000 messages have flashed around the microblogging site since the campaign began.
The analysis uses a software program called Sysomos that parses Twitter for messages tagged as being related to the election.
It's not clear how many Quebecers use Twitter but, according to statistics maintained by digital measurement firm comScore, the province is the second-most engaged online in the country.
Francophone users also appear to be having different conversations than their anglophone peers when it comes to the election.
While English-language messages, so far, have most often been about coalitions and taxes, francophones have been more likely to discuss the deficit and families.
The style of conversation has also been different in French.
While the majority of English messages are people resending links to published content or other people's thoughts, francophones are engaging in more free-flowing conversation.
Among them is Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe.
His Twitter account, which is maintained by a BQ team, has been responding to queries, in addition to sending out press releases.
Duceppe even used Twitter earlier this week to weigh into the coalition debate, saying his talks with Stephen Harper in 2004 had been about forming one.
About 4.5 million Canadians use Twitter.
The analysis, which is being conducted for The Canadian Press throughout the federal campaign, only measures messages stamped with so-called "hashtags" -- such as #fed2011 and #elxn41 -- that allow Twitter users to identify their tweets as election-related.
