AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION E-electioneering and E-democracy (Government 2.0) in Australia Studies of online citizen consultation and social media in the 2010 Australian federal election Professor Jim Macnamara PhD, MA, FPRIA, FAMI, CPM, FAMEC
AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION Australian federal election 2010 Macnamara, J., & Kenning, G. (2011). E-electioneering 2010: Trends in social media use in Australian political communication. Media International Australia, 139 [in print].
AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION Methodology Content analysis – quantitative and qualitative Number of social media types and sites Blog posts Facebook ‘friends’, ‘likes’, ‘Wall posts’, comments, notes Twitter ‘followers’, ‘following’, ‘tweets’ (broadcast, responses & coded) YouTube video uploads, channel visits, and views Other networks (e.g. LaborConnect, ‘ThinkTank’, etc) Sample (quantitative) 206 re-standing Members of House of Reps and Senate 2 major political parties (Labor & Liberal) Sample (qualitative) Top 10 most frequent tweeters and most ‘liked’/befriended Facebook sites E-ELECTION 2010
AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION 2007 – 2010 comparison Social media % change Personal Web site % Twitter % Facebook % YouTube % MySpace % Blogs % Flickr % E-surveys % E-petitions % E-newsletter % Total online sites/activities % E-ELECTION 2010
AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION Politicians on Twitter E-ELECTION 2010
AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION Top 20 politician tweeters E-ELECTION 2010
AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION
Facebook page ‘likes’ & friends E-ELECTION 2010
AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION Facebook page ‘likes’ & friends (Excl PM & ‘Rudd factor’) E-ELECTION 2010
AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION Followers & following E-ELECTION 2010
AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION Followers and following PoliticianTweetsFollowersFollowing 1. Malcolm Turnbull43926,94320, Scott Morrison1581, Andrew Robb1421,6841, Tony Burke1343, Kate Lundy1044, Julia Gillard7543,53827, Tony Abbott219,08320 E-ELECTION 2010
AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION Types of tweeting Politician ResponsesBroadcastsWhere am I?Attack on opponents * Malcolm Turnbull Scott Morrison Andrew Robb Tony Burke Kate Lundy Mathias Corman Julia Gillard * Attack on opponent by name or opposition policy combined. E-ELECTION 2010
AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION ALP party use of social media PartySocial mediaContent & metricsSite ALPWeb site Labor TV (YouTube channel) 32 video uploads 230,171 channel visits 1,247,009 total views 42 nd most viewed in Aug Labor Blog32 posts Twitter account788 tweets in period 5,617 followers 4,203 following 1,735 total tweets Facebook page3,467 ‘likes’ 75 wall posts 616 comments Labor ThinkTank308 ideas 315 comments Labor Connect2,936 members MySpace23,505 friends 6 comments 0 blog posts since 25/07/07 Flickr E-ELECTION 2010
AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION Liberal party use of social media LIBWeb sitehttp:// Liberal.TV (YouTube channel) 9 video uploads 98, 373 channel visits 639,111 total views 83 rd most viewed in Aug Twitter account188 tweets in period 7,089 followers 6,645 following 1,985 total tweets Facebook page16,450 ‘likes’ 35 wall posts 2,959 comments ralia Flickrhttp:// E-ELECTION 2010
AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION Two-way – listening as well as talking Dialogue Conversations Openness Democratisation of the public sphere PRACTICES of communication are changing/reverting – not just the technologies Web 2.0 / social media
AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION E-democracy/Government 2.0 E-government – service delivery E-democracy – consultation and engagement of citizens UK Power of Information review (Mayo & Steinberg, 2007) UK Digital Dialogues report (Miller & Williamson, 2008) UK Power of Information Task Force (2009) Australian Government 2.0 Taskforce (2009)
AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION E-DEMOCRACY
AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION Methodology Depth interviews with architects of 11 federal departments and agencies involved in online citizen consultation Policy, IT, and communication staff Content analysis of online citizen engagement sites AG’s national online human rights consultation DBCDE blog on digital economy DEEWR early childhood education consultation ATO Australian War Memorial Australian Museum Participation (netnography) E-DEMOCRACY
AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION Findings of analysis on online consultation Lack of planning Clear objectives (not) Involve IT, policy and communication Hijack by controversial issues and lobbyists Limitations on meeting response time expectations Poor design and navigation in some cases Lack of resources to monitor and respond Culture barriers (PS regulations, attitudes) Language barriers Focus on government hosted, not independent Lack of sense-making tools (e.g. text analysis) Communities of interest / practice E-DEMOCRACY
AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION Findings of analysis on online engagement Listening requires work An architecture of listening Policies Resources Open culture Tools to monitor and analyse E-DEMOCRACY
AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION Will the conversation end in the ‘politics of peacetime’? The future of ‘government 2.0’ and e-democracy? Where to now?
AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION T H A N K Y O U Peter Lang, New York (2010) Pearson Australia (2011)