Paper by Axel Bruns, Daniel Angus, Timothy Graham, Ehsan Dehghan, Nadia Jude, and Phoebe Matich, presented at the AoIR 2022 conference, Dublin, 3 Nov. 2022.
Electioneering in Pandemic Times: The 2022 Australian Federal Election on Facebook and Twitter
1. CRICOS No.00213J
Electioneering in Pandemic Times:
The 2022 Australian Federal Election
on Facebook and Twitter
Axel Bruns, Daniel Angus, Timothy Graham, Ehsan Dehghan, Nadia Jude,
and Phoebe Matich
Digital Media Research Centre
Queensland University of Technology
a.bruns@qut.edu.au – @snurb_dot_info
4. CRICOS No.00213J
Australian Politics since 2007
• Instability:
• First PM to last a full term
since 2007
• Extreme importance of
opinion polls for internal
party politics
• Deep divisions between
factions within Labor and
Liberal parties
• PM Morrison survived mainly because there are
few genuine leadership contenders left in the
Liberal partyroom (https://www.9news.com.au/national/aus
tralias-main-national-sport-is-leadership-
spills-according-to-wikipedia/0b3e8ed0-
d0e8-4522-863a-ce650a72706d)
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Time for Change?
• The Late Late Show:
• Election called on 11 April 2022
• Election day is 21 May 2022
• Why so late?
• Parliamentary terms not entirely fixed
• Prime Minister sets the election date
• Usually set to maximise re-election chances
• In this case, hoping for any kind of late change
to the opinion polls
(https://www.pollbludger.net/fed2022/bludgertrack2022/)
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• Key features:
• Three(ish)-year terms
• Bicameral system:
• House of Representatives (151 seats, local electorates)
• Senate (76 seats, half(ish)-senate elected each election, 12 per State / 2 per Territory)
• Compulsory voting: ~97% of eligible Australians enrolled; potential fines for non-participation
• Preferential voting system (House of Reps):
• Lowest-ranked candidates eliminated, votes redistributed to next preferred candidate
• Strongly favours major party candidates: usually receive preferences from minor parties
Australia’s Political System
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Parties and Independents
• Major parties:
• Permanent Coalition of Liberal Party (neo-liberal), National Party (agrarian protectionist), Liberal
National Party (merger between the two, Queensland), Country Liberal Party (Northern Territory)
• Labor Party (broadly progressive)
• Minor parties:
• Greens (progressive)
• Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party (far right)
• Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party (populist protest party)
• Various micro-parties
• Independent candidates:
• Including ‘teal independents’ (liberal), loosely organised and supported by Climate 200 initiative
(https://www.climate200.com.au/)
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• Australia in 2022:
• Long list of grievances against the government: pork-barrelling and misuse of funds; climate
inaction and 2020 bushfires; slow vaccine and RAT roll-outs; misdirected COVID assistance;
sexual abuse in Parliament; French submarines; China relations; etc.
• Prime Minister Scott Morrison seen as out of touch, unreliable, a liar, a misogynist
• Ministers accused of sexual abuse, historical rape, misuse of funds, lying
• Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese seen as inexperienced, uninspiring
• Labor seen as divided, untrustworthy, unstable, radical
• (‘Teal’) Independents seen as strong local voices or Liberals / Labor in disguise
• … plus evidence of electoral mis- and disinformation circulation
The Vibe
(https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-07/clive-palmer-united-
australia-party-election-spending-influence/100973064)
(https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-25/behind-the-
candidates-for-palmers-united-party-election/100858058)
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Social Media Analysis
• Organic social media data, from 4 April 2022 to 20 May (i.e. excluding election day):
• Twitter: tweets by / at all identified candidate accounts (same as 2013/2016/2019 elections)
• Facebook: posts and engagement metrics for all identified candidate pages
• (account identification process supported by Twitter-funded project, led by Ehsan Dehghan)
• Advertising data:
• PoliDashboard, gathering political ads from Facebook Ad Library
(led by the Social Media Lab at Ryerson University)
• Australian Ad Observatory data donation project, gathering ads from participants’ Facebook newsfeeds
(ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society)
• Election Ad Data Dashboard, gathering Facebook Ad Library spend data
(University of Queensland)
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Discussion of the candidates
Climate change
Corruption / misappropriation of public funds
Critique of the media for overtly biased
campaign coverage that was
disproportionately favourable towards the
Coalition (incumbent), and that was also
silencing voices of minor parties and
independents
• Discussion of the candidates,
• Climate change
• Corruption / misappropriation of public funds
• Critique of the media for overtly biased campaign
coverage that was disproportionately favourable
towards the Coalition (incumbent), and that was
also silencing voices of minor parties and
independents.
Voices directed
towards candidates
on Twitter
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So What Happened?
• Key observations:
• Limited willingness to amplify Coalition messaging on Facebook, even less on Twitter
• On Facebook, engagement patterns broadly followed eventual results
• Especially at state levels
• Very active campaigns by Labor, Independents, Greens
• Independent campaigns effectively combined in-person and online campaigning
• Quirks of the electoral system provide more seats for Independents (10) than Greens (4),
despite percentage shares of the popular vote (Independents: 5.3%; Greens: 12.2%)
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Weekly updates at
https://research.qut.edu.au
/dmrc/tag/election/
@socialmediaQUT – http://socialmedia.qut.edu.au/
@qutdmrc – https://research.qut.edu.au/dmrc/
This research is supported by Australian Laureate
Fellowship project “Dynamics of Partisanship and
Polarisation in Online Public Debate”, the ARC Discovery
project “Evaluating the Challenge of 'Fake News' and
Other Malinformation”, the ARC Centre of Excellence for
Automated Decision-Making and Society, and the
Development, Institutions, and Public Policy Research
Group.
Facebook data courtesy of CrowdTangle.
PoliDashboard courtesy of the Social Media Lab at
Ryerson University.
Election Ad Data Dashboard by the University of
Queensland.
Thank you!
Editor's Notes
Top bigrams (taking note that post frequency is uneven across parties), for the candidate’s own Twitter accounts.
On issues of policy, climate change is prominent for all parties except for the Liberal and National Parties who have avoided talking about this substantial and pressing existential issue throughout their campaign. That the Coalition is avoiding this issue not surprising given that it is a source of significant internal party tension, and that their woeful record on this issue is placing pressure on traditionally safe inner-city Liberal seats where ‘teal’ Independents and the Greens offer credible alternatives.
On the topic of the Independents and minor parties like the Greens, there is a significant push on topics surrounding balance of power, and a rejection of the major parties, placing themselves in a position to pick up protest votes from disgruntled voters.
Bigrams again, from Candidates own Twitter accounts, but this time to understand topic focus and how it has ebbed and flowed. While much of this messaging has remained consistent throughout the campaign, issues relating to cost of living, and in particular interest rates have featured late in the campaign. While the Coalition have framed much of their online advertising campaign through the lens of the economy, this may have begun to backfire given the interest rate rise decision made by the independent Reserve Bank of Australia mid-way through the campaign. Labor in particular shifted to strongly focus on interest rates, cost of living pressure, and wage stagnation in these last two weeks.