AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION E-electioneering and E-democracy

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 Ph. D, MA, FPRIA, FAMI, CPM, FAMEC

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

E-ELECTION 2010 Methodology § § § AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION 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) • You. Tube video uploads, channel visits, and views • Other networks (e. g. Labor. Connect, ‘Think. Tank’, 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 2007 2010 % change 137 157 14. 6% Twitter 0 92 9200. 0% Facebook 8 146 1725. 0% You. Tube 13 34 161. 5% My. Space 26 9 -65. 4% Blogs 15 29 93. 3% Flickr 0 9 900. 0% E-surveys 24 7 -70. 8% E-petitions 10 3 -70. 0% E-newsletter 42 78 85. 7% 275 564 105. 1% Personal Web site Total online sites/activities

E-ELECTION 2010 Politicians on Twitter AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION

E-ELECTION 2010 Top 20 politician tweeters AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION

AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION

E-ELECTION 2010 Facebook page ‘likes’ & friends AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION

E-ELECTION 2010 Facebook page ‘likes’ & friends AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION (Excl PM & ‘Rudd factor’)

E-ELECTION 2010 Followers & following AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION

E-ELECTION 2010 AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION Followers and following Politician Tweets Followers Following 1. Malcolm Turnbull 439 26, 943 20, 498 2. Scott Morrison 158 1, 978 166 3. Andrew Robb 142 1, 684 1, 254 4. Tony Burke 134 3, 107 550 5. Kate Lundy 104 4, 352 720 9. Julia Gillard 75 43, 538 27, 467 92. Tony Abbott 2 19, 083 20

E-ELECTION 2010 AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION Types of tweeting Politician Responses Broadcasts Where am I? Attack on opponents * 248 191 81 9 Scott Morrison 33 125 48 19 Andrew Robb 1 141 17 79 Tony Burke 65 68 9 14 Kate Lundy 28 56 22 11 Mathias Corman 22 44 5 49 Julia Gillard 12 51 20 4 Malcolm Turnbull * Attack on opponent by name or opposition policy combined.

E-ELECTION 2010 ALP party use of social media Party ALP Social media Web site Labor TV (You. Tube channel) Labor Blog Twitter account Facebook page Labor Think. Tank Labor Connect My. Space Flickr Content & metrics 32 video uploads 230, 171 channel visits 1, 247, 009 total views 42 nd most viewed in Aug 32 posts AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION Site http: //www. alp. org. au/home http: //www. alp. org. au/labortv http: //www. alp. org. au/blogs/alp-blog 788 tweets in period 5, 617 followers 4, 203 following 1, 735 total tweets 3, 467 ‘likes’ 75 wall posts 616 comments 308 ideas 315 comments 2, 936 members http: //twitter. com/australianlabor 23, 505 friends 6 comments 0 blog posts since 25/07/07 http: //www. myspace. com/officiallaborspace http: //www. facebook. com/Labor. Connect http: //thinktank. alp. org. au/issues http: //connect. alp. org. au http: //www. flickr. com/photos/juliagillard

E-ELECTION 2010 Liberal party use of social media LIB Web site Liberal. TV (You. Tube channel) Twitter account Facebook page Flickr AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION http: //www. liberal/org. au 9 video uploads 98, 373 channel visits 639, 111 total views 83 rd most viewed in Aug 188 tweets in period 7, 089 followers 6, 645 following 1, 985 total tweets 16, 450 ‘likes’ 35 wall posts 2, 959 comments http: //twitter. com/liberalaus http: //www. facebook. com/Liberal. Party. Aust ralia http: //www. flickr. com/photos/tonyabbott

Web 2. 0 / social media § § § 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 AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION

E-democracy/Government 2. 0 § § § AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION 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)

E-DEMOCRACY AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION

E-DEMOCRACY Methodology § § § AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION 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

Where to now? § § AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION Will the conversation end in the ‘politics of peacetime’? The future of ‘government 2. 0’ and e-democracy?

THANK YOU AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR PUBLIC COMMUNICATION Peter Lang, New York (2010) http: //bit. ly/21 Cmediarevolution Pearson Australia (2011)