Twitter and the Australian election #ausvotes #ozpolitics

I’ll be heading off to Media140 OzPolitics in Canberra on 23 September 2010 (the Twitter hashtag is #OzPolitics). It fits nicely into many of the discussions I’ve had about the recent Australian federal election

Some of the big questions I’ve been thinking about include:

Was the realtime web important in the outcome of the election?
Did Twitter play a major role in election discussions?
If there was significant conversation about the election on Twitter did the politicians listen to it?

I’m going to be exploring these questions over the next two weeks.

In the meantime I’ve been checking out some of the analysis of the election Twitter stream (mainly around the #ausvotes hashtag) done before, during and since the election.

Tim Bull has done some interesting analysis of highly engaged people on Twitter who used the hashtag #ausvotes for their discussions about the election. His analysis is summarised nicely in his blog post. He also created a list of the most engaged Tweeters for #ausvotes.
Axel Bruns from QUT also has some interesting analysis of the #ausvotes twitter stream
Our Twitter election by Bella Counihan
What the Hashtag
Australian Election 2010 – Social Media Match Fitness by Tiphereth Gloria
The 2010 Australian Twitter Election by Andrew Grill
Twitter and the Australian Election 2010 by Matthew Gain
Buzz Election by Buzz Numbers

4 thoughts on “Twitter and the Australian election #ausvotes #ozpolitics”

I can think of one really interesting example of your third point.

There was an extensive campaign against Stephen Conroy and Labor’s plans for an ISP-level internet filter, both before the campaign and during the campaign.

There were even moves to ‘filter Conroy‘.

And yet there was no discernible movement from Labor on this issue.

I think what a lot of people on Twitter forget is that a lot of people *aren’t* on Twitter.

Twitter has changed the face of newsgathering and reporting, but we have to bear in mind that Twitter users do not provide an accurate reflection of broader society.

LikeLike

Kate Carruthers says:

13 September 2010 at 9:04 am

Thanks Gary – that’s an interesting angle I’d not considered

LikeLike

“The power of Twitter” – audio interview – http://blogs.abc.net.au/canberra/2010/08/the-power-of-twitter.html
Dr Will Grant (Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science at the ANU / @willozap) raises some good points in this, although I think the interviewer is more interested taking the piss out of mundane tweets etc, which is just a reflection of how many people still view it, which is probably important in itself re the area you’re looking into.

LikeLike