{"id":1829,"date":"2012-10-09T09:32:56","date_gmt":"2012-10-08T23:32:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mappingonlinepublics.net\/?p=1829"},"modified":"2012-10-09T21:01:37","modified_gmt":"2012-10-09T11:01:37","slug":"atnix-australian-twitter-news-index-week-402012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mappingonlinepublics.net\/dev\/2012\/10\/09\/atnix-australian-twitter-news-index-week-402012\/","title":{"rendered":"ATNIX: Australian Twitter News Index, Week 40\/2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I write this, the controversy over Alan Jones\u2019s indefensible remarks about the Prime Minister\u2019s late father continues \u2013 fuelled by Jones\u2019s belligerent apology, the withdrawal of advertisers from Jones\u2019s show, and radio station 2GB\u2019s embarrassing attempts to portray Jones and itself as the victims of cyberbullying<\/a>, or even of cyberterrorism. News of Jones\u2019s remarks at a Sydney University Liberals fundraiser broke during the final days of September, and made an impact only on the final days of last week\u2019s Australian Twitter<\/em> News Index \u2013 this week\u2019s edition is where we\u2019d expect to see any real activity related to the issue, if we are to see any at all.<\/p>\n

Standard background information:<\/strong> this analysis is based on tracking all tweets which contain links pointing to the URLs of a large selection of leading Australian news and opinion sites. For technical reasons, it does not contain \u2018button\u2019 retweets, but manual retweets (\u201cRT @user \u2026\u201d) are included. Datasets for those sites which cover more than just news and opinion (abc.net.au, sbs.com.au, ninemsn.com.au) are filtered to exclude irrelevant sections of those sites (e.g. abc.net.au\/tv, catchup.ninemsn.com.au). For our analysis of \u2018opinion\u2019 link sharing, we include only those sub-sections of mainstream sites which contain opinion and commentary (e.g. abc.net.au\/unleashed, articles on theaustralian.com.au which include \u2018\/opinion\u2019 in the URL), and compare them with dedicated opinion and commentary sites.<\/p>\n

See the posts tagged \u2018ATNIX\u2019 on this site for a full collection of previous results.<\/a><\/p>\n

ATNIX Week 40: 1-7 Oct. 2012<\/h1>\n

The first observation we must make for the new week, though, is that Alan Jones is no Julian Assange: however much outrage his comments may have prompted in Australia, they remain a purely domestic issue. The total number of tweets containing links to the Australian news sites we track, therefore, is down, not up: as last week\u2019s Assange bump washes out of the system, some 112,000 tweets remain, and the day-to-day news sharing patterns on Twitter<\/em> return to comparative normality.<\/p>\n

So do the lead sites, for the most part: the Sydney Morning Herald<\/em> and the news sections of the ABC maintain their usual share of the total volume of links exchanged this week, and only news.com.au<\/em> moves into an unusually strong third place ahead of The Age<\/em>. All of this points to the observation that political controversies such as Jones\u2019s comments may shift the focus<\/em> of the links which Australian Twitter<\/em> users are sharing \u2013 but they do not necessarily increase the overall volume<\/em> of links being shared in this way. We don\u2019t consume more information: what changes is which information we consume.<\/p>\n

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As a result, we will always see greater fluctuations in the volume and distribution of links to opinion and commentary sites and sections. During weeks without major controversies, the relative prominence of such articles within the total volume of links being tweeted will be smaller; at times when major points of contention are being discussed by Australian Twitter<\/em> users, on the other hand, a greater number of links to further commentary will be shared.<\/p>\n

So, even in spite of the comparatively lower volume of news<\/em> links being shared this week (in the absence of new Assange articles or other material of international interest), the number of commentary<\/em> links managed to increase slightly, to a six-week high of just over 20,000 \u2013 and as usual, it\u2019s the SMH<\/em> opinion section and The Conversation<\/em> which command the majority of the attention (at a combined total of just under 50%). Crikey<\/em> has a good week as well, moving into third place for now.<\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Given these patterns, there isn\u2019t a great deal to say about the day-to-day sharing of news links: it\u2019s a relatively quiet week on the news front, with the ABC\u2019s strong Tuesday performance led by articles on the dire state of Barrier Reef corals (some 200 tweets) and John Laws\u2019s critical assessment of Jones\u2019s comments (175 tweets). The relatively small contribution which even these leading articles make to ABC News<\/em>\u2019 Tuesday total of just over 4000 tweeted links already points to the comparatively wide spread of what news articles Australian Twitter<\/em> users shared this week, however.<\/p>\n

The spike in links to news.com.au<\/em>, also on Tuesday, is somewhat more interesting by comparison, mainly because the most tweeted link to the site (some 150 tweets) points to a photo of Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, Bronwyn Bishop, and Sophie Mirabella<\/a> in front of a poster reading \u201cJuliar\u2026. Bob Brown\u2019s Bitch\u201d \u2013 pointing out that incivility in the political arena has been far from limited to Alan Jones in recent years.<\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But the real story, once again, is in opinion and commentary, and takes some time to materialise. Ignore the Assange-related mid-week spike in week 39: as far as domestic issues are concerned, it\u2019s once again the weekend which sees the most significant sharing of opinion and commentary links by Australian Twitter<\/em> users. It may be an exaggeration to say quite categorically that weekdays are for news, and weekends for opinion \u2013 but the Jones story, at least, has been one centred on weekends so far. (The one exception from that rule, for week 40, is Crikey<\/em>, where First Dog on the Moon\u2019s cartoon about Jones\u2019s apology<\/a> was responsible for one third of the tweets which pointed to it on Monday.)<\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Central to that story, once again, is the Sydney Morning Herald<\/em>\u2019s opinion section: Mike Carlton\u2019s inimitably titled portrait of Jones, \u201cPrissy Shrieks of Fear and Loathing<\/a>\u201d, received some 920 tweets that day, accounting for well over half of all tweets linking to the SMH<\/em> opinion section. For The Conversation<\/em>, the balance of tweets is even more lopsided \u2013 but here, they point to an article which relates to the Jones saga, if at all, only in a very roundabout fashion: Patrick Stokes\u2019s article \u201cNo, You\u2019re Not Entitled to Your Opinion<\/a>\u201d accounted for some 1,120 of the 1,300 tweets which linked to the site that Saturday.<\/p>\n

So, while much will continue to be made of the social media response to Jones\u2019s comments, to his half-hearted apology, and to his employer\u2019s glass-jawed \u201ccyberbullying\u201d complaints (which serve only to undermine the important campaign against actual<\/em> cyberbullying), it turns out that these debates affect the ongoing process of news sharing on Twitter<\/em> only to a limited extent. The Jones controversy manifests mainly in the opinion articles which are being shared, and even there the focus is squarely on a handful of key pieces; at the same time, other news is still getting through as well.<\/p>\n

Australian Twitter<\/em> users aren\u2019t quite as rabidly obsessed with Jones as 2GB might like to imagine (because that, at least, would mean he\u2019s still relevant to Australian political discourse) \u2013 most of us, I suspect, just wish he\u2019d finally finish digging that hole for himself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I write this, the controversy over Alan Jones\u2019s indefensible remarks about the Prime Minister\u2019s late father continues \u2013 fuelled by Jones\u2019s belligerent apology, the withdrawal of advertisers from Jones\u2019s show, and radio station 2GB\u2019s embarrassing attempts to portray Jones and itself as the victims of cyberbullying, or even of cyberterrorism. News of Jones\u2019s remarks … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “ATNIX: Australian Twitter News Index, Week 40\/2012”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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