Australian Politics in a Digital Age Peter John Chen Australian Politics in a Digital Age Peter John Chen Published by ANU E Press The Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200, Australia Email: [email protected] This title is also available online at http://epress.anu.edu.au National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Author: Chen, Peter John. Title: Australian politics in a digital age / Peter John Chen. ISBN: 9781922144393 (pbk.) 9781922144409 (ebook) Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Subjects: Information technology--Political aspects--Australia. Information technology--Social aspects--Australia. Internet--Political aspects--Australia. Information society--Social aspects--Australia. Communication--Political aspects--Australia. Dewey Number: 303.48330994 All rights reserved. Conditions of use of this volume can be viewed at the ANU E Press website. Cover image: Jonathon Chapman, Typographic Papercut Lampshade, http://www.flickr.com/ photos/jonathan_chapman1986/4004884667 Cover design and layout by ANU E Press Printed by Griffin Press This edition © 2013 ANU E Press Contents List of illustrations . vii List of figures . ix List of tables . xi About the author . xiii Acknowledgements . xv Acronyms and jargon . .. xvii Chapter 1 — Contextualising our digital age . 1 Chapter 2 — Obama-o-rama? . 17 Chapter 3 — Social media . 69 Chapter 4 — Anti-social media . 113 Chapter 5 — All your base . 135 Chapter 6 — Elite digital media and digital media elites . 161 Chapter 7 — Policy in an age of information . 189 Epilogue – An invitation to readers . 213 References . 215 v List of illustrations Chapter One Illustration 1: Extract of Alexander Graham Bell’s sketch of the 7 telephone (1876) Chapter Two Illustration 2: Tony Abbott Looking at Things Tumblr blog 23 Illustration 3: The Real Jeff parody website 27 Illustration 4: Examples of learning and transfer among political 29 parties Illustration 5: Opposition leader Tony Abbott responding to the 62 audience on Q&A Chapter Three Illustration 6: Twitter conversations: #auspol and #nbn (29 March 92 2012) Illustration 7: Referral to advocacy website 96 Illustration 8: Pro-trucking Facebook post, ascii cut and paste 100 Illustration 9: South Australian Feminist Collective Facebook page 104 Chapter Four Illustration 10: ‘You said it …’ entry 119 Illustration 11: Example of ‘casual racism’ on Facebook 124 Illustration 12: Prime Minister Gillard burnt in effigy, Eureka Dawn 128 Vigil (3 December 2010) Illustration 13: Comment on opinion piece published in The Punch 130 Chapter Five Illustration 14: Still image from GetUp! election 2010 ‘enrol to vote’ 138 ad (5 July 2010) Chapter Six Illustration 15: Story commentary on Twitter regarding the Craig 175 Thomson affair (24 May 2012) Illustration 16: Politician–journalist social interactions on Twitter 178 Illustration 17: Personal newspaper drawn from political content, 181 published using paper.li Chapter Seven Illustration 18: 2012 Govhack (1 June 2012) 204 vii List of figures Chapter One Figure 1: Weekly hours spent per media 8 Chapter Two Figure 2: Citizens’ views of government and democracy 22 Figure 3: Traffic to party websites, May–August 2010 31 Figure 4: Politicians’ Facebook friends/fans in the 2010 federal 33 election Figure 5: Politicians’ Twitter followers in the 2010 federal election 33 Figure 6: Candidates’ website functionality in the 2010 federal 38 election Figure 7: Candidates’ use of websites, federal elections 2004, 2007, 38 and 2010 Figure 8: Candidates’ perceptions of channel value in electioneering 39 2007 Figure 9: Candidates’ ‘points of presence’ online in the 2010 federal 40 election Figure 10: Candidates’ use of SNSs, elections 2007 and 2010 42 Figure 11: Depth of content in campaign mini-sites in the 2010 42 federal election Figure 12: Australians’ interest in election campaigns 54 Figure 13: AES media research ‘Followed the election in the mass 55 media’ Figure 14: Source of web browsing of political content 57 Figure 15: Mentions of party leaders in blog posts, May–August 59 2010 Figure 16: Mentions of party leaders in tweets, July–August 2010 60 Chapter Three Figure 17: Age distribution of social-media survey respondents, 78 compared to N Figure 18: Difference between the political engagement of users of 79 social media Figure 19: Gross household income, users of political social media 81 Figure 20: Highest level of education achieved, users of political 82 social media Figure 21: Political blog users, employment characteristics 85 ix Australian Politics in a Digital Age Figure 22: Discursive transfer: Political-blog users compared with 86 general users Figure 23: Political behaviour of blog users, comparative 87 Figure 24: Political behaviour of Twitter users, comparative 92 Figure 25: Political behaviour of Facebook users 95 Figure 26: Propensity to group membership among social media 95 users Figure 27: Political content on Facebook wallposts, by type 99 Figure 28: Stranger on a train scenario, willingness to talk 102 Figure 29: Policy areas of interest to social media users 103 Chapter Five Figure 30: Reason for joining CANdo, self-reported 143 Figure 31: CANdo membership, political activity 143 Figure 32: Occupy Sydney participants’ levels of political trust, 150 compared with Australian population Chapter Six Figure 33: Changes in the metro and national newspaper industry, 163 1901–2011 Figure 34: Percentage change in newspaper circulation 1977–2012 163 Figure 35: Online news media source, 2010 election 167 x List of tables Chapter Two Table 1: Australians’ use of digital media in the 2010 election 31 Table 2: YouTube videos posted within 50 days of the 2010 federal 32 election date Table 3: Voter engagement by party website in the 2010 federal election 49 Table 4: Election activity 58 Chapter Three Table 5: Social media typology 75 Table 6: Time spent on the internet and political activity, under 30s 80 Table 7: Political use of Facebook 99 Chapter Four Table 8: Political social media, response rates by gender 124 Table 9: Stranger on a train scenario, gender differences 125 Chapter Five Table 10: Mobilisation channel 151 Table 11: Heard about protest via SNS, by age 151 xi About the author Peter John Chen is a lecturer in media and politics at the University of Sydney. He holds a PhD from The Australian National University. His research focuses on the relationship between media and political processes, with a particular interest in new forms of communication. He also teaches and researches in the areas of public policy, Australian politics and social movements. Peter is the author of numerous articles and chapters on the role of digital media in Australian political life, and the author of Electronic Engagement: A Guide for Public Managers (ANU E Press, 2007) and the co-author of Electronic Democracy? The Impact of New Communications Technologies on Australian Democracy (Democratic Audit of Australia, 2006). He is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Information Technology & Politics and the International Journal of Electronic Governance. Photo courtesy of the University of Sydney xiii Acknowledgements I would like to thank my research collaborators over the years: Dr Stewart Jackson Dr Jay Smith, Dr Lucas Walsh and Dr Ariadne Vromen. In addition, I’m indebted to the consistent, reliable and high quality work of my research assistant Elise Wood, the red pen of Anna Bardsley and the editorial assistance of Sam Vincent. Finally, I’d like to acknowledge the kind and useful comments of my reviewers, the Australian and New Zealand School of Government and ANU E Press for the publication of this book, supporting my choice of an open-licensing approach permitting derivative works. For Jo. xv Acronyms and jargon AAP Australian Associated Press ABC Australian Broadcasting Corporation ABS Australian Bureau of Statistics ACMA Australian Communications and Media Authority AEC Australian Electoral Commission ALP Australian Labor Party ANZSOG Australia and New Zealand School of Government API application programming interface ascii American Standard Code for Information Interchange (character encoding) ATA Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance AWi A Australian Women in Agriculture BBC British Broadcasting Corporation CMS content-management system (software) CSG coal seam gas DDOS distributed denial-of-service EBP evidence-based policy e-democracy electronic democracy FOIA Freedom of Information Act Gov 2.0 Government 2.0 hi-fi high fidelity ICT information and communications technology KISS keep it simple, stupid LOIC Low Orbit Ion Cannon (software) MMOG massively multiplayer online game (software) MP member of parliament NBN National Broadband Network NGO non-government organisation NPM new public management NSFW not safe for work NSM new social movement OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development xvii Australian Politics in a Digital Age OSMO online social movement organisation OSS open-source software (licensing model) PBB political big brother (website) PR public relations PRIA Public Relations Institute of Australia PSI public sector information Q&A Question and Answer (television show) ROFLMFAO rolling on floor laughing my fucking ass off RSPT Resource Super Profits Tax RSS really simple syndication (web format) SMO social movement organisation SMS short messaging service (text messaging) SNS social networking service SOL Senator Online (party) SOP standard operating procedure UGC user-generated content USB universal serial bus (hardware) WWW World