{"id":2602,"date":"2013-09-05T12:31:33","date_gmt":"2013-09-05T02:31:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mappingonlinepublics.net\/?p=2602"},"modified":"2013-09-05T15:51:08","modified_gmt":"2013-09-05T05:51:08","slug":"ausvotes-the-australian-federal-election-on-twitter-week-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mappingonlinepublics.net\/dev\/2013\/09\/05\/ausvotes-the-australian-federal-election-on-twitter-week-4\/","title":{"rendered":"#ausvotes: The Australian Federal Election on Twitter, Week 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re on the home stretch: Australia goes to the polls this Saturday (though quite a few Australians appear to have cast their votes early<\/a> already). Here\u2019s a final pre-election update on how the election has unfolded on Twitter<\/em> from the 4 August campaign start through to last Sunday, then \u2013 with another look at the activity per electorate to follow tomorrow, if all goes well, and there will be a final round-up in the coming week. My earlier posts are here: week 1<\/a>, a network of interactions<\/a>, week 2<\/a>, week3<\/a>, and a per-electorate update<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A reminder about what we\u2019re examining here: we are tracking all tweets by and @mentions of sitting members and candidates in the 2013 federal election. As more (especially minor party) candidates have become known, we\u2019ve progressively extended our list as far as possible. In particular, this week a few more Pirate Party, WikiLeaks, and Palmer\u2019s United Australia Party members make their entry into the mix.<\/p>\n

We begin as usual with the overall volume of @mentions of the most prominent candidates. This week, Julie Bishop and Bill Shorten appear again in the top ten, due to a greater level of activity around their Twitter<\/em> accounts in the past few weeks; at the top, though, Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott continue to operate in a league of their own.<\/p>\n

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

While Rudd continues to carry a substantial lead in his total number of @mentions from the first week of the campaign, the past three weeks have been a considerably tighter affair. From mid-August onwards, we\u2019ve seen Abbott pick up a larger number of @mentions than Rudd, due to some controversial remarks on the campaign trail; more recently, however, Rudd has caught up with Abbott again (partly due to some controversy of his own), and has now opened up an @mentions lead over Abbott once again. This is aided in part by the Labor Party\u2019s campaign \u201claunch\u201d on 1 September, which saw an especially strong increase in @mentions for Rudd. Also new in this top group is Clive Palmer, leader of the United Australia Party, whose colourful campaign in recent weeks has attracted increased Twitter<\/em> attention.<\/p>\n

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

The boost for Rudd over the final days of last week is especially notable from the day-to-day figures \u2013 unsurprisingly, both he and Deputy PM Albanese receive unusually many @mentions during the Labor campaign \u201claunch\u201d. Both Rudd\u2019s and Abbott\u2019s @mentions also spike during the final leaders\u2019 debate on Wednesday 28 August.<\/p>\n

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

As we\u2019ve seen throughout the campaign, however, these @mentions of the political leaders have very little to do with the leaders\u2019 own Twitter<\/em> activities. If we took their own tweeting efforts as a yardstick, Greens leader Christine Milne, Coalition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull, and Deputy Prime Minister Anthony Albanese should be the most @mentioned Australian political leaders: each of the three has added a substantial number of tweets to their tally over the past week, with Milne\u2019s Twitter<\/em> campaign in particular shifting up another gear.<\/p>\n

\"Leaders'<\/a><\/p>\n

To find the most active Australian politicians on Twitter<\/em>, however, we need to look yet further afield. As Milne\u2019s performance already shows, some of the minor parties have worked especially hard to make up for the much more limited air time and column inches they receive in the mainstream media by taking to social media platforms to promote their agendas. Of the candidates we track, then, accounts like the Pirate Party\u2019s NSW Senate hopeful Brendan Molloy (@piecritic), his Climate Sceptics Party colleague Bill Koutalianos (@NoDirectAction), and former<\/span> Palmer\u2019s United Australia Party candidate for Corangamite Buddy Rojek (@Buddy4Coranga) \u2013 whose Twitter<\/em> profile still lists him as an Independent, strangely<\/del> who was disendorsed by his party for promising an extravagant election night party<\/a> \u2013 all out-tweet their more illustrious competitors. Another Pirate, Senate candidate Mel Thomas (@photogramel), and WikiLeaks candidate Kellie Tranter, also feature prominently. It\u2019s not surprising that especially the particularly Web-affine parties (Pirates and WikiLeaks) should appear here, of course.<\/p>\n

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

In terms of total activity by their candidates, these smaller parties which tend to focus mainly on the Senate and a handful of promising local electorates cannot compete with the nationwide campaign activities of the major parties, however. If we aggregate the total volume of tweets by candidates of the various parties, Labor and the Greens show substantially more activity than any of the other parties. This supports the perception that \u2013 even in spite of a closer electoral race between Rudd and Abbott than there would have been between Gillard and Abbott \u2013 the Coalition continues to run something of a \u2018small target\u2019 strategy in its Twitter<\/em> activities: limited activity by its candidates except for the key frontbenchers, and limited engagement with the electorate through this medium. Conversely, Labor and the Greens may see Twitter<\/em> as a more useful medium for reaching their supporters, assuming perhaps that the Australian Twittersphere skews slightly to the left \u2013 though frankly I\u2019ve seen very little hard evidence for this claim to date. (Note that the graph below shows Liberals, Nationals, and LNP separately \u2013 but even in combination the three Coalition parties wouldn\u2019t reach the tweeting levels of Greens or Labor.)<\/p>\n

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

Again, the aggregate volume of tweets directed at<\/em> the various parties\u2019 candidates tells a very different story, however. In the graph below we have excluded leaders Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott from the count, in order to get a better sense of the extent to which Twitter<\/em> users address any of the other political candidates at all \u2013 it shows a strong focus on Labor and Coalition candidates even though the latter aren\u2019t especially active at tweeting themselves. It\u2019s tempting to see Labor\u2019s lead over the Coalition here as a result of Labor candidates\u2019 greater levels of Twitter<\/em> activity; however, the fact that Labor candidates represent the current government, and a party which is struggling in the polls and is therefore receiving substantial attention, provides an equally valid explanation.<\/p>\n

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

Finally, a brief look at the state-by-state activity. First, an overview of which state\u2019s politicians are most active in their own tweeting efforts seems to broadly follow the distribution of the Australian population across the states \u2013 naturally, the more populous states are home to a greater number of local electorates, and are therefore also blessed (ahem) with a greater number of politicians. As a result, we see significant Twitter<\/em> activity by politicians especially in New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland.<\/p>\n

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

But once again this does not translate in a similar distribution of attention from the Twitter<\/em> userbase. For the graph below we\u2019ve once again removed the major @mention magnets Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott, in order to highlight Twitter<\/em> activity around the other<\/em> candidates \u2013 and doing so has brought New South Wales right to the fore. This reflects the fact that many of both major parties\u2019 frontbenchers represent NSW electorates, and perhaps also supports the suggestion that a substantial part of the election is being fought in Western Sydney; additionally, it\u2019s probably quite simply also a sign that Sydneysiders \u2013 representing Australia\u2019s largest population centre \u2013 are especially well-represented on Twitter<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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

And that\u2019s it for the moment. We\u2019ll follow up again with an electorate-by-electorate breakdown of activity tomorrow \u2013 other than that, happy (?) voting!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re on the home stretch: Australia goes to the polls this Saturday (though quite a few Australians appear to have cast their votes early already). Here\u2019s a final pre-election update on how the election has unfolded on Twitter from the 4 August campaign start through to last Sunday, then \u2013 with another look at the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “#ausvotes: The Australian Federal Election on Twitter, Week 4”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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