{"id":2018,"date":"2013-02-01T07:30:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-31T21:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mappingonlinepublics.net\/?p=2018"},"modified":"2013-02-01T08:12:14","modified_gmt":"2013-01-31T22:12:14","slug":"atnix-australian-twitter-news-index-weeks-1-42013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mappingonlinepublics.net\/dev\/2013\/02\/01\/atnix-australian-twitter-news-index-weeks-1-42013\/","title":{"rendered":"ATNIX: Australian Twitter News Index, Weeks 1-4\/2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our Australian Twitter<\/em> News Index still hasn\u2019t quite returned from holidays, so what follows in this post is another multi-week round-up, covering the four weeks of January 2013. We\u2019ll get back into our regular rhythm soon, especially now that there\u2019s the dank smell of electioneering in the air, but for the moment, let\u2019s have just a quick look at how January unfolded.<\/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 Weeks 1-4\/2013: 31 Dec. 2012 to 27 Jan. 2013<\/h1>\n

Since we\u2019re dealing with a four-week period, let\u2019s skip straight to the day-by-day overview of activity. Here, we\u2019re seeing a definite post-New Year\u2019s lull in news sharing on Twitter <\/em>(with a brief break for server maintenance on 12\/13 Jan.):<\/p>\n

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

Remarkably, none of our major news sites received more than 4,000 tweets per day during the first week of the year; except for ABC News<\/em> and the Sydney Morning Herald<\/em>, they even struggled to pass the 2,000 mark. Indeed, for all 30 sites combined, we captured only just over 122,000 tweets that week. By week 3, that number had risen to 171,000, however \u2013 which is the strongest weekly result we\u2019ve had since ATNIX started in mid-2012. As the graph above shows, this is driven especially by strong mid-week results for the SMH<\/em>, ABC News<\/em>, and The Age<\/em>. At 163,000 tweets, week 4 also remains very strong, if somewhat below this peak.<\/p>\n

Of the week 3 spikes in activity, ABC News<\/em>\u2019s Wednesday win is driven largely by its report about Paarthepan<\/a>, an baby born in the Sydney immigration detention centre (530 shares), and a story about The Guardian<\/em>\u2019s plans to launch an Australian edition<\/a> (200 shares) \u2013 which we will track in ATNIX as soon as the site launches, of course. At the Sydney Morning Herald<\/em>, the same day sees major stories about Julia Gillard\u2019s commitment to religious lobbies<\/a> that they will continue to be able to discriminate on religious and sexual grounds (460 shares), and another piece covering The Guardian<\/em>\u2019s announcement<\/a> (210 shares). Clearly, these numbers alone do not full account for what is a very strong day for both publications, though, and there are many more stories which received upwards of 100 shares; quite why we\u2019re seeing such an increase in overall sharing activity this week remains unclear to me, therefore. Perhaps everyone is facing the new year\u2019s news with renewed energy after an extended break?<\/p>\n

A second major spike for both publications, on Friday, is due to an ABC News<\/em> report about a massive gold nugget find near Ballarat<\/a> (430 shares) and its coverage of the growing bushfire threat in Victoria and New South Wales<\/a> (240 shares), while the SMH<\/em>\u2019s total is somewhat inflated by an opinion piece (600 shares) which we\u2019ll get back to below. Its second most linked-to item, strangely enough, is an image from a 2011 piece, of a concept design for what planes may look like in 2050<\/a> (340 shares) \u2013 due to a single, very widely retweeted message which linked to this image. I\u2019m afraid I can\u2019t explain this one, as the original tweet was in Arabic.<\/p>\n

Our opinion and commentary sites and sections show a somewhat more jittery day-to-day pattern, as usual; the daily volume of links to opinion pieces depends so much more on a handful of articles which cut through to a larger audience, as we know. None of them managed to do so during week 1, clearly: remarkably, none of our sites even reached 800 tweets per day, and the total volume of opinion tweets barely made it past 14,000 that week.<\/p>\n

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

Here, too, things pick up by week 3, which records almost 30,000 tweets linking to opinion pieces. The two Fairfax sites show particular spikes in week 3: on 16 Jan., this is something of a false dawn for the SMH<\/em> as it once again badges a political news story (about religious discrimination rights, as outlined above) under its National Times<\/em> banner, but economics editor Peter Martin also contributes with a genuine opinion piece about smart shopping<\/a> (250 shares). Over at The Age<\/em>, the discrimination story picks up another 380 shares, while smartly accompanying this with a syndicated op-ed by former US President Jimmy Carter<\/a>, criticising any form of discrimination due to religious prejudices (260 shares). This turns out to be something of a slow burner: two days later, it\u2019s still leading The Age<\/em>\u2019s opinion links (with 190 shares that day), followed by 150 shares for a Richard Ackland piece on the James Ashby affair.<\/p>\n

The Age<\/em> also shows a significant spike on the final day of our four weeks, but this, too, is a National Times<\/em>-badged piece of political reporting \u2013 covering Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi\u2019s membership in a far right US lobby group<\/a> (300 shares) \u2013 which really shouldn\u2019t be counted as an opinion piece. Remarkably, if we ignored this article, Jimmy Carter\u2019s op-ed would still lead this day for The Age<\/em>, by the way \u2013 if with a much less impressive 40 additional shares.<\/p>\n

Finally, it\u2019s interesting to note that The Conversation<\/em> had a particularly slow start to the year \u2013 perhaps the type of content it covers was especially unlikely to be shared during the post-Christmas lull. By 21 Jan., however, it was back in business again, and even leads the opinion and commentary field on that day. The leading story: a piece on how the NRA and other US gun lobbyists distort Australian crime statistics<\/a>, which alone received some 370 shares. <\/p>\n

So much for now, then \u2013 we return in February with more regular updates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our Australian Twitter News Index still hasn\u2019t quite returned from holidays, so what follows in this post is another multi-week round-up, covering the four weeks of January 2013. We\u2019ll get back into our regular rhythm soon, especially now that there\u2019s the dank smell of electioneering in the air, but for the moment, let\u2019s have just … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “ATNIX: Australian Twitter News Index, Weeks 1-4\/2013”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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