The next speaker in this session at the AANZCA 2025 conference is Edward Hurcombe, whose focus is also on news in the 2025 Australian federal election. News consumption is now increasingly fragmented, with a growing number of younger voters no longer engaging with mainstream, legacy media; influencers were therefore invited to the 2025 budget lockdown, and PM Anthony Albanese appeared on influencer Abbie Chatfield’s podcast.
How was the election covered across traditional and social media news outlets in Australia, then? How do they imagine their audiences? Data were gathered from ABC News, The Age, The Guardian, news.com.au, and The Daily Aus; these reports were coded for their style (explainer/educational), genre (opinion/analysis), horse-race journalism, and reporting. Nearly 1,000 news articles were coded by the project.
The vast majority of the coverage was reporting; some 160 articles were explainer or educational, some 130 opinion articles, and a smaller number were horse-race reporting. These were relatively evenly distributed across all outlets, with explainers especially in ABC News and The Daily Aus. As a public broadcaster, the ABC was strong in the educational space, while the diminished newsroom at The Age engaged in more opinion writing; general reporting dominated throughout, however.
Such categories also blended into each other, however; explainers and horse-race reporting were often connected in The Daily Aus, for instance, which both explained the electoral system and presented the key candidates in seats. It engaged in some innovative approaches to reporting, but also mimicked traditional news values and practices. Across all outlets, explainers were not always entirely serious, either: they also highlighted some of the colour and entertainment of the election process, for instance.
There is innovation in reporting across the various outlets, however, and this pilot analysis has been fruitful in this regard. The startup culture at the Daily Aus is particularly productive here, but might also clash with traditional journalistic values.
