Election Days and Social Media Practices: Tweeting as Australia decides

Tim High!eld QUT and Curtin

t.high!eld@qut.edu.au | @timhigh!eld | timhigh!eld.net

Politics and social media •  Integration of social media platforms, such as

Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram, into politics: – Election campaigns –  Politician accounts – Citizens –  Journalists and media organisations

•  Mediation of politics takes place over multiple platforms, involving diverse actors (who participate on more than one platform themselves)

Social media practices •  Within political discussions and topics, social

media have a variety of functions: – Campaigning and promotional channels – Activism organisation and information-sharing – Backchannel for broadcasts – "ird Space, where political talk arises from and

within other topics – Platform for debate with political actors,

journalists, and citizens all present (if not necessarily interacting)

"e Australian context •  Australia has seen a dedicated audience for

political discussion develop on social media, such as around hashtags such as #auspol and #qanda

•  While these speci!c markers may attract a particular group of Twitter users, political topics are still concerns for the wider population

•  Voting is compulsory for eligible citizens 18 and over in federal and state elections. – At elections, some engagement with politics is

necessary, even if to criticise this necessity.

#ausvotes, et al. •  Analysis built out of previous studies of

national and state-level elections in Australia: – Federal (2010, 2013) – Queensland (2012) – Western Australia (2013)

•  Standardisation of election coverage: use of common hashtags for campaigns (#xvotes), although not universally employed

Election day tweeting •  Australian election campaigns, as with other

international votes, have seen peak activity on the election day itself

•  "is spike in tweeting is a result of several di#erent approaches which coincide with election day; they are all related to the vote, but also re$ect personal experiences as well as engaging with the results at large

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Phases of election day tweeting #wavotes, tweets per hour: 9 March, 2013

Phases of election day tweeting

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18000"#ausvotes, tweets per hour: 7 September, 2013

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Phases of election day tweeting #wavotes, tweets per hour: 5 April, 2014

Phases of election day tweeting

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1. Voting period

2. Analysis, predictions, results

3. Speeches #ausvotes, tweets per hour: 7 September, 2013

A model of election day tweeting 1. "e individual, the personal – the micro-level of the election

2. "e analytical – move away from personal to mix home electorates with wider results and predictions 3. "e reactionary – the live responses to media coverage, in particular the victory and concession speeches by the respective major party leaders

1. "e personal, the participatory •  Tweets about personal voting experiences •  Partisan comments and mentions •  Local candidates, leaders

•  Political rituals •  Independent projects encouraging voter feedback and

crowd-sourced information about polling places – the experience, the facilities –  Booth Reviews, Democracy Sausage, SnagVotes, !e Hungry Voter –  Promote further participation to improve the accuracy of

information available, hook in to the standard election day experience

2. "e analytical, the informative •  As polling places close and votes are counted, the

focus moves from the individual experience to the wider coverage

•  Local results still important, but become more linked to the overall narrative

•  Information $ows centred on established media and political actors – enhanced by broadcasters using common hashtags rather than their own, retweeting across their many accounts

3. "e reactionary, the mass context •  "e focus becomes narrower still, with

responses to both the results and the speci!c media coverage

•  Live-tweeting of quotes and interpretations of the victory and concession speeches from the respective party leaders

•  "e shared focus of a mass audience on a few actors, rather than the distributed coverage of the voting experience phase

Personal to ‘popular’? •  While the election commentary mixed political and

personal views throughout – responses to the results include personal opinions as well as partisanship – the early tweets are more uniquely individual in their content: one person’s voting experience will not be exactly the same as another’s

•  By the time of the speeches, though, the individual context is subsumed by the shared response to the common topic (as featured in other media) –  A further participatory aspect, as with other media events,

where social media users comment on broadcasts as they happen, o#ering analysis, invective, and pithy one-liners

Trends •  Because of the common context – the overall

result, the coverage of the speeches, as well as the captive audience following the results rather than being out voting – more likely to receive retweets during phases 2 and 3?

•  During phase 1, popular accounts and common sentiments responsible for most RTed comments (e.g. “RT if you voted below the line”)

•  Memes and macros, humour (especially dry observations of the results) among the most RTed comments a%er polling closed

Casual contributors? •  #ausvotes, 7 September 2013: –  34585 users contributing 111987 tweets

•  Phase one (to 6pm): –  17549 users contributing 43089 tweets (2.45 per user)

•  Phases two and three (post-6pm): –  23939 users contributing 68898 tweets (2.87 per user) –  6903 users contributing 60967 tweets to both periods

(25871, 35096) –  20% users, 54.4% tweets overall

•  39.3% users, 60% tweets pre-6pm •  28.8% users, 50.9% tweets post-6pm

Political gatekeepers old and new •  "e model also demonstrates that some aspects of the

traditional politics-media dynamic are reinforced on social media – "e role of traditional media sources for both providing and

amplifying information is central – even if other users do not mention media accounts, they are responding to elections as media events

– "e use of Twitter handles rather than proper names also accounts for high numbers of @mentions for politicians and commentators even if not tweeting themselves

–  Newer/alternative voices can achieve prominence, and this is a mixed space of old and new, but the old and established bodies remain central here.

Political gatekeepers old and new •  Inconsistent use by politicians and parties – Mentioned by other users, but not contributing (to

hashtagged comments) during election day •  Last minute social media campaigning not necessarily a

common strategy •  Resisting comments during count until results

con!rmed?

Factors and limits •  Compulsory and ritualised nature of elections in

Australia invites certain kinds of participation on social media, which secondary hashtags hook into (barbecues, cake stalls)

•  Even with increased activity on election day, though, this is still not a representative sample of the Australian population at large.

•  Although #ausvotes an established marker, it is not the only election hashtag, nor are any required in related tweets

Further directions •  "is paper outlines a preliminary model of how election

day unfolds on social media; the political and social contexts of other nations will determine its adaptability beyond Australia

•  "e transition from personal voting experience to analysis to reactions and commentary demonstrates a number of Twitter’s uses across the same context

•  Further research would look beyond the single platform and hashtag to examine further election day practices and the mix of the personal and the political.