{"id":1915,"date":"2012-11-09T15:33:04","date_gmt":"2012-11-09T05:33:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mappingonlinepublics.net\/?p=1915"},"modified":"2012-11-17T17:13:17","modified_gmt":"2012-11-17T07:13:17","slug":"atnix-australian-twitter-news-index-week-442012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mappingonlinepublics.net\/dev\/2012\/11\/09\/atnix-australian-twitter-news-index-week-442012\/","title":{"rendered":"ATNIX: Australian Twitter News Index, Week 44\/2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week\u2019s Australian Twitter<\/em> News Index turned out to be relatively quiet once we filtered out the blatant spam for a hair growth product, which unfairly boosted the number of news.com.au<\/em> links shared. That spamming campaign still continues \u2013 and so I\u2019ve once again filtered out any tweets that link to news.com.au<\/em> articles and contain mentions of a product whose name rhymes with lame-o.<\/p>\n

In principle, week 44\/2012 should be interesting enough without the help of such spam: superstorm Sandy<\/a> slammed into the US east coast on Tuesday Australian time, and this was also the last full week before the US election; both events, as we now know, created all-time spikes in global Twitter<\/em> activity. That said, there\u2019s always the question of how much such overseas events affect the sharing of news stories published by domestic<\/em> Australian sources; there\u2019s a strong likelihood that what gets shared the most originates from sources much closer to the scene of the action \u2013 in this case, then, especially from US media.<\/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 44: 29 Oct. \u2013 4 Nov. 2012<\/h1>\n

First, to the overall figures. The total amount of Australian news links shared on Twitter<\/em> this week is down by a few thousand links, compared to week 43, but at close to 150,000 tweets remains just above the long-term weekly average. Interestingly, for a second week running, the news-related sections of the ABC site manage to just beat the Sydney Morning Herald<\/em> into second place, by just over 1,000 tweets; the rest of the leaderboard remains largely static. Even the relative marketshare percentages of the different sites have generally remained the same.<\/p>\n

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

There\u2019s usually more movement amongst opinion and commentary sites and sections, but even here there\u2019s relatively little change this week. Overall, it\u2019s been an average week for sharing Australian opinion articles on Twitter<\/em>: the 22,000-odd tweets we captured are just above the long-term trend, and down 2,000 from last week. <\/p>\n

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

Here, the most significant shift is the continuing rise of blogs.news.com.au<\/em>, which surpasses Crikey<\/em> to move into fourth place. But as with parent site news.com.au<\/em>\u2019s newfound popularity with spammers, there are some irregularities here: a single very active and highly partisan Twitter<\/em> account is responsible for just under 1,300 of the 2,400 tweets which linked to blogs.news.com.au<\/em> content; without its help, the site would be placed below The Australian<\/em>\u2019s opinion section.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve refrained from excluding these tweets (and indeed from naming the account), because here we\u2019re not dealing with a case of outright spam \u2013 as we did with the hair growth promotion \u2013 but a genuine, if hyper-active, form of engagement with the site. While the obsessive promotion of blogs.news.com.au<\/em> articles which this account engages in might well be spamlike in style, it\u2019s an attempt to make a political point (which, incidentally, is highly critical of the Labor government).<\/p>\n

Of the blogs.news.com.au<\/em> writers, the blogger most popular with this account is Andrew Bolt; almost 150 of Bolt\u2019s articles are promoted in this way (one of them<\/a>, in fact, is the subject of no fewer than 31 separate tweets). Piers Akerman (14 stories), Miranda Devine (12), Tim Blair (5) and Simon Benson (4) receive considerably less love. Let it never be said that the political commentariat in Australia doesn\u2019t have some very committed fans!<\/p>\n

To the daily trends, then \u2013 and on the news front, things look comparatively quiet, with no notable spikes:<\/p>\n

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

In fact, it\u2019s only in the weekly aggregate that the key stories emerge. ABC News\u2019 gallery of before-and-after photos from Sandy<\/a><\/em> received some 1,150 links over the course of the week, and a link to the online livestream of ABC News 24<\/a><\/em> was shared some 400 times \u2013 indicating the significant concerns about the impact of the storm on the eastern seaboard, and the key role of the ABC as the go-to station for the liver coverage of major breaking news events. Further ABC stories relating to Sandy also featured highly. Over the same period, the major story in the Sydney Morning Herald<\/em> was about revelations of hazing at Sydney University\u2019s St. John\u2019s College<\/a>, shared more than 650 times; by contrast, Sandy figures only as a minor story. <\/p>\n

What we\u2019re seeing here, it seems to me, is an indication of the fact that in spite of their use of the Internet as a common medium for news dissemination, real differences in their approaches to reporting, and in the public perception of their journalistic focus, still persist between ABC and SMH<\/em> \u2013 when live news breaks, its the public broadcaster that audiences turn to; when social and political scandals are revealed, it\u2019s the newspaper.<\/p>\n

The corresponding graph for the opinion and commentary sites and sections shows the impact of blogs.news.com.au<\/em>\u2019s newly-acquired fanboy: the orange line has lifted considerably from its long-term average:<\/p>\n

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

There\u2019s much less to say about the other sites. The Conversation<\/em> has a strong day on Monday, but its close to 650 incoming links are shared across a range of stories of which none receive more than 80 tweets; what we\u2019re seeing here is simply the usual \u2018Monday effect\u2019 which routinely causes an especially strong level of news sharing at the start of the week. The Age<\/em> emerges in a strong position on Friday, led largely by a piece by Waleed Aly<\/a> who questions the federal government\u2019s plans to excise the entire Australian mainland from the migration zone which received some 350 tweets. On the weekend, finally, it\u2019s the Sydney Morning Herald<\/em> whose commentary is most widely shared \u2013 but here, too, Twitter<\/em>-based audience engagement is spread widely across a broad range of stories. As far as opinion is concerned, this has been a very quiet week.<\/p>\n

Stand by for this to change quite substantially as we move into week 45, though. No doubt the US election will generate plenty of local interest, and commentary, as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week\u2019s Australian Twitter News Index turned out to be relatively quiet once we filtered out the blatant spam for a hair growth product, which unfairly boosted the number of news.com.au links shared. That spamming campaign still continues \u2013 and so I\u2019ve once again filtered out any tweets that link to news.com.au articles and contain … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “ATNIX: Australian Twitter News Index, Week 44\/2012”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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