{"id":3118,"date":"2015-09-16T09:27:23","date_gmt":"2015-09-15T23:27:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mappingonlinepublics.net\/?p=3118"},"modified":"2015-09-16T15:54:42","modified_gmt":"2015-09-16T05:54:42","slug":"returnbull-how-twitter-reacted-to-the-latest-leadership-spill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mappingonlinepublics.net\/dev\/2015\/09\/16\/returnbull-how-twitter-reacted-to-the-latest-leadership-spill\/","title":{"rendered":"#returnbull: How Twitter Reacted to the Latest Leadership Spill"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australian political observers will not need to be alerted to the fact that we have a new Prime Minister: on Monday afternoon, former Liberal Party leader Malcolm Turnbull unexpectedly challenged Prime Minister Tony Abbott for the leadership<\/a>, and later that night won a party room ballot in a 54 to 44 decision. As with the previous leadership spills (from Rudd to Gillard in 2010<\/a>, and from Gillard to Rudd in 2013<\/a>), social media \u2013 and especially Twitter<\/em> \u2013 once again played an important role in tracking this unfolding story across many different rumours and reports. Here\u2019s how they did it.<\/p>\n

For this analysis, we are drawing on a Twitter<\/em> dataset tracking relevant hashtags such as #spill and #libspill; later in the afternoon, we also added a range of other hashtags and tracking terms as they appeared, as well as capturing @mentions of the accounts of Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, Bill Shorten, and a number of other prominent frontbenchers.<\/p>\n

First, given the continued growth of Twitter<\/em> as a platform in Australia since the earlier spills, it is unsurprising that we saw considerably more user engagement with this event compared to earlier spills. While in 2010, the #spill hashtag peaked at just under 500 tweets per minute, the 2013 spill reached 1,100 tweets per minute \u2013 but in 2015, #libspill alone jumped to over 2,500 tweets per minute as the results of the party room ballot were announced. (Throughout the following analysis, we are focussing on the period from 2 p.m. to midnight on 14 September 2015.)<\/p>\n

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Several other hashtags also attained considerable prominence, sometimes in combination with #libspill: the more general, very well-established #auspol hashtag also appeared, of course, and some Twitter<\/em> users commemorated the prospective demise of PM Abbott with #putoutyouronions, referencing Abbott\u2019s famous predilection for eating raw onions<\/a>. Users also reflected on the fact that this was the second party-room attempt to remove Abbott by using #libspill2.<\/p>\n

Others, curiously, aimed to divert attention from #auspol (with a lowercase L) by using #auspoI (with a capital i) instead. As these are virtually indistinguishable in sans serif fonts, many users unknowingly retweeted such #auspoI tweets \u2013 and I must admit I have no idea what purpose the \u2018fake\u2019 hashtag would serve.<\/p>\n

Many breaking news hashtags, including #libspill, are used especially also to share and compile the latest news about the event they are tracking, and this provides us with a useful insight into the news sources that led the coverage. Amongst the most widely shared sources, the two national broadcasters led the way, followed by the Sydney Morning Herald<\/em> and \u2013 perhaps somewhat more surprisingly, given its relatively recent entry into the Australian media market \u2013 Buzzfeed Australia<\/em>. Interspersed is a blog operated by user @otiose94, which appears largely because of that user\u2019s own relentless self-promotion (some may say spamming) in the #libspill hashtag.<\/p>\n

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But by far the leading recipient of links shared through Twitter<\/em> on the night is Twitter<\/em> itself: a substantial number of #libspill tweets used the platform\u2019s embedded image functions to share real or photoshopped, newsworthy or comical images throughout the night. Leading the pack was a blast from the past, shared in almost 1,000 tweets:<\/p>\n

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BREAKING: Surprise candidate has just appeared in the corridors. #libspill<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/gY5gWrv91F<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Nick Rippon (@nickrippon) September 14, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n