Long version of the video presented by Axel Bruns, Michelle Riedlinger, and Jean Burgess at the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) conference, 12-16 Oct. 2021.

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The Conversation on Facebook:
Patterns of Dissemination in Australia
and Anglophone Canada
Axel Bruns, Michelle Riedlinger, Jean Burgess
a.bruns / michelle.riedlinger / je.burgess @ qut.edu.au
QUT Digital Media Research Centre /
Global Journalism Innovation Lab

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The Conversation
• Key elements:
• Content selection through crowdsourcing:
• Scholars propose new articles, and submit raw drafts
• Text development by journalistic editors, for approval by scholars
• Journalism-as-a-service:
• Scientific research, professional editing by journalists
• Publication on centralised, well-established platform
• Designed for shareability:
• Consistent use of Creative Commons licences
• Links to content shared via social media
• A ten-year success story:
• The Conversation Australia launched 2011
• Country / regional editions in UK, US, Africa, France, Indonesia, Canada, Spain + TC Global
• The Conversation Canada launched 2017

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Data
• Facebook posting data from CrowdTangle:
• Posts from public Australian / Canadian pages (i.e. majority of admins located in AUS/CAN)
• Posted between 1 Jan. and 31 Dec. 2020
• Containing a link to one of 41 Australian / 71 Canadian news domains (incl. TC)
• Limitations:
• Public pages only (no groups or profiles)
• Admin location ≈ country focus (e.g. Conversation Africa page administered from Australia)
• CrowdTangle coverage for pages with small followings is incomplete / inconsistent

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1.4m posts in 2020
410k distinct Australian news links shared
271k Facebook posts on-shared
Australia

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Australian Facebook pages
sharing links to Australian news
Link-Sharing Network

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Page-Domain Network
(Australia)
Nodes: pages / Australian news domains
Size: indegree
Colour: outdegree
Links posted by Australian pages, Jan. to Dec. 2020

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Page-Domain Network
(Australia)
Nodes: pages / domains
Size: indegree
Colour: number of The Conversation links shared per page
Links posted by Australian pages, Jan. to Dec. 2020

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Domain-Domain Network (Australia)
Nodes: domains
Size: degree
Edges: five other domains that were most frequently shared by pages that shared the source domain
Links posted by Australian pages, Jan. to Dec. 2020
Mainstream /
centre-left
news outlets
Conservative
NewsCorp
outlets

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Australian Facebook pages sharing
other Facebook pages’ posts
(that contain links to Australian news)
On-Sharing Network

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Page-Page Network
(Australia)
Nodes: pages / groups
Size: degree
Colour: degree
Posts shared by Australian pages that contained links to Australian news sites, Jan. to Dec. 2020

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Qld
Victoria
Conservatives
SA
WA
Indigenous
Progressives
National /
NSW
Me Too Greens
Tasmania
Education
SBS
NRL
Page-Page Network
(Australia)
Nodes: pages / groups
Size: degree
Colour: degree
Posts shared by Australian pages that contained links to Australian news sites, Jan. to Dec. 2020

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Page-Page Network
(Australia)
Nodes: pages / groups
Size: degree
Colour: number of The Conversation links shared per page
Posts shared by Australian pages that contained links to Australian news sites, Jan. to Dec. 2020
Qld
Victoria
Conservatives
SA
WA
Indigenous
Progressives
National /
NSW
Me Too Greens
Tasmania
Education
SBS
NRL

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1.5m posts
599k distinct Canadian news links shared
83k Facebook posts on-shared
Canada

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Canadian Facebook pages
sharing links to Canadian news
Link-Sharing Network

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Page-Domain Network
(Canada)
Nodes: pages / Canadian news domains
Size: indegree
Colour: outdegree
Links posted by Canadian pages, Jan. to Dec. 2020

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Page-Domain Network
(Canada)
Nodes: pages / domains
Size: indegree
Colour: number of The Conversation links shared per page
Links posted by Canadian pages, Jan. to Dec. 2020

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Nodes: domains
Size: degree
Edges: five other domains that were most frequently shared by pages that shared the source domain
Links posted by Canadian pages, Jan. to Dec. 2020
Domain-Domain Network (Canada)
Conservative
Postmedia
outlets
Black Press Group
community news
outlets
Mainstream
news outlets

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Canadian Facebook pages sharing
other Facebook pages’ posts
(that contain links to Canadian news)
On-Sharing Network

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Page-Page Network
(Canada)
Nodes: pages / groups
Size: degree
Colour: degree
Posts shared by Canadian pages that contained links to Canadian news sites, Jan. to Dec. 2020

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Quebec
Conservatives
Taiwan /
Hong Kong
Halifax
Global
News
CTV
City News
Left
Indigenous
Saskatoon
NDP
Idle No
More
Page-Page Network
(Canada)
Nodes: pages / groups
Size: degree
Colour: degree
Posts shared by Canadian pages that contained links to Canadian news sites, Jan. to Dec. 2020

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Page-Page Network
(Canada)
Nodes: pages / groups
Size: degree
Colour: number of The Conversation links shared per page
Posts shared by Canadian pages that contained links to Canadian news sites, Jan. to Dec. 2020
Quebec
Conservatives
Taiwan /
Hong Kong
Halifax
Global
News
CTV
City News
Left
Indigenous
Saskatoon
NDP
Idle No
More

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Summary

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Assessing The Conversation’s Positioning
• Australia:
• General tendencies towards polarisation (ABC News / Guardian / SMH / Age vs. News Corp.)
• TV news outlets as intermediaries (7 News, 9 News)
• 7 News most linked to (often by 7 News pages), but ABC News most shared domain for most pages
• The Conversation fairly widely shared, but mostly in centrist / centre-left contexts
• Some visibility in conservative on-sharing networks, but often for criticism
• Canada:
• Largely centred around Global News, CBC, CTV, plus regional networks (e.g. Black Press Group papers)
• Global News and CTV most linked to, but CBC most shared domain for most pages
• Unexplained drop in Global News sharing since mid-2020
• The Conversation not yet strongly established (but some sharing at the centre)
• Visibility in on-sharing networks mainly in left-wing and Indigenous activism clusters

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Limitations and Outlook
• Limitations:
• Australian / Canadian public Facebook pages only (assessed by admin locations)
• no location categorisation of public groups, no data on non-public groups
• no data on public or non-public profile activity
• domain-level analysis only
• not counting Conversation content republished in other outlets
• Outlook:
• theme- and article-level analysis: which topics are prominent in which network contexts
• longitudinal analysis: changes over time (e.g. pre- / post-COVID)
• cross-platform analysis: comparisons with Twitter etc.

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This research is funded by the ARC project LP160100205 Amplifying Public Value: Scholarly
Contributions’ Impact on Public Debate and the SSHRC project Global Journalism Innovation Lab.
It is also supported by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-
Making and Society.
Facebook data are provided courtesy of CrowdTangle.
Acknowledgments