Elections

The first session at ASMC14 is one I'm in, and focusses on social media and politics – and my QUT colleague Tim Highfield is the first speaker. His interest is in how diverse social media platforms have been integrated into election campaigns and related aspects. This involves a range of new and established actors, and a range of platforms which are used for various purposes from campaigning, activism, and backchannel discussions for televised events, through to being a third space for public discussion and engagement with established voices including journalists and politicians.

In Australia, a number of established Twitter hashtags …

The final speakers in this Digital Methods panel are Jürgen Grimm and Christiane Grill. They're interested in moving beyond the analysis of individual tweets to the aggregation of Twitter data which can be used reliably in media research. This requires the use of transparent and clear search or tracking strategies, and a further manual reduction of the data to weed out irrelevant material; further, the intertextual connections of tweets need to be identified and examined, both between each other and with external texts (e.g. from mass media).

The idea in this is to move from an atomistic Twitter universe, based …

The second speaker this morning at Digital Methods is Andreas Jungherr, who shifts our focus back to Twitter: he is interested in how we may use observations from this platform to understand what happens in society as such. What, if anything, may we read out of, for example, the patterns around an election which could help us predict the outcome of the election?

In the German election 2009, for example, Andreas found substantial activity around the Pirate Party, but this is an artefact of the specific demographics of Twitter in the country at the time rather than a sign …

The next AoIR 2013 paper is by Pieter Verdegem and Evelien D'Heer, who shift our focus to regional elections in Flanders. The role of Twitter in politics has been described from both optimistic and pessimistic perspectives; the Twittersphere has been seen by many to reflect existing social structures. Is there a move from formal and representative politics towards networked politics, though? From broadcasting to convergence logic?

Pieter and Evelien captured all @mentions in the #vk2012 debate, engaging in both content and network analysis. The hashtag was promoted by the public service broadcaster in Flanders, so it provides a useful point …

The next presenter on this AoIR 2013 panel is Christian Christensen, whose interest is in the minority parties in the US presidential election. He examined the tweets of four minority parties, defined as parties which had enough ballot listings across the states to technically be able to win the election: the Libertarians, the Greens, the Constitution Party, and the Justice Party. This, then, is a study of third party politics - and such parties have traditionally adhered to a polarising and populist style of politics.

In combination, the four parties' candidates had some 129,000 Twitter followers, led by the Libertarians …

Well, with our Twitter and Society book officially launched, I'm now in a final AoIR 2013 session on politics and Twitter. First off, Kevin Driscoll is presenting on the role of Twitter in the US presidential election, noting how much "Twitter's opinion" was used as a yardstick for overall public opinion. There is some slippage here: "Twitter" as the Twitter community, "Twitter" as Twitter, Inc., and "Twitter" as a source of opinion data.

Kevin and his colleagues examined the Twitter activity around the three US presidential debates, following the live Twitter streams as the debates happened and dynamically adding more …

This AoIR 2013 also contains a paper by Theresa Sauter and me, on the tone of debate in the #auspol hashtag for the discussion of Australian politics. Here are the slides - audio to follow now online as well...

Exploring Emotions on #auspol: Polarity and Public Performance in the Twitter Debate on Australian Politics from Axel Bruns

The final paper in our panel at AoIR 2013 is by Anders Larsson and Bente Kalsnes, looking at the Norwegian election on 9 Sep. Their work examines the use of Twitter by citizens, politicians, and journalists. One starting point for this were the #valg2013 and #valg13 hashtags, to identify what users are being mentioned in these hashtags - which showed that then-PM Jens Stoltenberg was @mentioned frequently but did not often reply, while the Greens party both sent and received many hashtagged tweets. Amongst the retweeters, one-off messages which receive substantial retweets can become prominent, but more frequently retweeted users …

The next paper in our AoIR 2013 panel is by Julia Neubarth and Christian Nuernbergk, covering the German federal election two days after the Australian one. The Net is playing an increasingly important role in political communication in Germany, but there is still very little active participation by citizens, and active participants are mainly male, younger, and left-wing. Politicians are getting more active - some 60% of federal parliamentarians are on Twitter, although Chancellor Merkel still isn't.

German politicians on Twitter will find a mixed audience - use in the country is growing, but still limited; however, active participants are …

The next paper in our AoIR 2013 panel is by Theresa Sauter, Tim Highfield and me. Here are the slides - audio to come later now with audio...

#ausvotes Mark Two: Twitter in the 2013 Australian Federal Election from Axel Bruns