gatewatching

Over on Fairfax’s National Times opinion site, I’ve now posted a first article examining the use of Twitter during the early election campaign – for the first week of campaigning, excluding the debate last Sunday (which I’ve examined on Mapping Online Publics, my new network mapping blog with Jean Burgess, here and here).

As Jason, Barry and I did with our Club Bloggery series for ABC Online during the 2007 federal election, I’m also posting the full text of the article here, in my original version. For what it’s worth, I much preferred my original title rather than the more anemic ‘All a-Twitter on the Campaign Trail’ that Fairfax’s sub-editors settled on…

Which Political Leader Would You Rather …?

By Axel Bruns

Tweet, that is. Internationally, the short-message social networking service Twitter itself has been used by a number of recent political contenders as a campaigning tool, with varying degrees of success; the Twitterati tend to get frustrated quickly by campaigns that merely use the system to push out PR messages, without any indication that there’s a real human being behind the account.

Hashtags, by contrast, are a way for the Twitter user community themselves to keep a distributed conversation going – by including a short tag like ‘#<topic>’ in their messages, they enable others with similar interests to follow only the tweets relevant to that topic.

Since the federal election was called, the hashtag ‘#ausvotes’ has emerged as the preferred way for users of Twitter to mark their election-related messages. An analysis of these tweets for the first full week of the campaign points to some interesting patterns.

Take, for example, the messages directed at Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott. Both leaders have their own Twitter accounts – even if in reality it’s most likely their staffers who do the actual posting –, and many other users have directed their support or criticism to them by including ‘@juliagillard’ or ‘@tonyabbottmhr’ in their messages.

Interestingly, the Prime Minister has established a commanding lead over the opposition leader – in terms of #ausvotes tweets received (not counting retweeted messages), Gillard leads Abbott 74% to 26% to date. Of course, this is not exactly Twitter’s equivalent of the ‘preferred PM’ beauty contest which we know from the opinion polls, since those tweets are as likely to be positive as negative – but it’s intriguing to think that they may reflect the Twitterati’s assessment of who is more likely to win the election: after all, who’d want to be seen talking to the eventual loser?

A useful insight into the Twittersphere’s attitude towards the election campaign so far also comes from what messages Twitter users retweet – that is, pass along to their own networks. Unsurprisingly, news of the election itself ranked highly: indeed, @juliagillard herself has already won one contest with the nearly 200 retweets of her tweet

The election will be on 21 August. With your support I will move Australia forward. JG

Twitter was also used to for a few more or less tongue-in-cheek public service announcements:

RT @abcqanda: Use twitter to get voters enrolled. Deadline tomorrow. Retweet like crazy.

RT @Hashtag_Police: #ausvotes refers to the upcoming Australian election. #ozvotes refers to choosing a new Wizard.

At the same time, parties big and small had a much harder time getting their messages passed along. The @LiberalNSW’s message

It’s the SAME LABOR! Please retweet and show your support!

and the Greens’ @senatormilne’s alert that

Abbott is ignorant on #climate action - India already has a tax on coal

only managed some 20 retweets each, only marginally ahead of the @aussexparty at half that level:

Supporting @aussexparty in the #election? Please let everyone know with the hashtag #vote1sex

Some journalists also seized the opportunity to engage in a little informal opinion polling – @catherinedeveny’s message

RT this if you would vote for a party who promises to remove tax-exempt status for religions.

was passed along some 110 times, for what it’s worth.

But of course we’re still in the early days of the campaign, and along with the political organisations themselves, Twitter users, too, are still working out where this social media tool fits into the day-to-day business of electioneering. For now, at any rate, the comics seem to have it – one of the most retweeted messages by some margin was @unsungsongs’ play on Labor’s ubiquitous slogan:

I propose from now on we simply abbreviate "Moving Forward" to #MoFo

The Coalition didn’t come off unscathed, either – @electionsoz2010 stood up for Australia:

News: Tony Abbott names new Minister for Women: Mel Gibson

And even the ABC’s election analyst, @antonygreenabc, reported on a new milestone in moving forward:

Julia Gillard today passes Earle Page to become Australia’s 25th longest serving Prime Minister

While @courtney_gibson wondered about the constitutional dimensions of a Twitter election:

Under the terms of our Constitution does the GG get to approve the official hashtag?

But Twitter is a fast-paced beast, and as the parties finally outline their policy platforms for the election, we’re likely to see discussion under the #ausvotes tag become a good deal more pointed. Especially, of course, when the debate comes around – Australian Twitter users have a particular predilection for tweeting back at the TV, and are likely to switch straight between #masterchef and #ausvotes.

Assoc. Prof. Axel Bruns is a social media researcher in the ARC Centre for Creative Industries and Innovation at Queensland University of Technology. His blog is at http://snurb.info/.

Australia, Twitter, election, politics