Twitter comes of political age

By NIKKI BRICKNELL
THESE days, political parties can seem out of touch without an online presence, but some parties have made more of an effort than others. In light of recent negotiations between The Greens and the Australian Labor Party, this essay will look at the use of social media by the two parties’ leaders during the week before the 2010 election, specifically Twitter.

The 2007 election was called ‘the YouTube election’ by the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH, 2007) and the treatment of the election changed the way politics were seen in the online sphere. Even then-Prime Minister John Howard had a MySpace page and a YouTube video, “because he would have looked out-of-touch without one” (Granfield, 2008). Three years later, SMH has dubbed the latest round ‘the Twitter election’, but not because of its use by politicians (Counihan, 2010). For every twelve enrolled voters, there is one Australian Twitter user (ABC, 2010) so it’s no wonder that mainstream media has integrated Twitter into its stream of information, with live tweets rolling across the bottom of television screens and selected tweets published in newspapers such as The Age and the Sunday Telegraph (Ibid).

One month before the election, Prime Minister Julia Gillard and other politicians were using Twitter as another broadcasting medium, rather than as a tool to “truly engage with the social media audience” (Adams, 2010). According to media commentator and freelance journalist Matthew De Neef, “by using Twitter solely as a broadcast medium, a real opportunity is being missed by politicians” (Medhora, 2010). Gillard, while a newcomer to the Twitterverse, had already gathered more than 50.000 followers by the election (ABC, 2010), while seasoned Twitterer and Greens leader Bob Brown (Brown, 2010) had just under 16,000 followers, but the difference in their use of Twitter was large.

By the election, Gillard’s account had posted only 136 tweets since joining on 4 July 2010, 38 of which were during the week before the election (Gillard, 2010). Going by the tweets signed ‘JG’, Gillard personally tweeted 23 times that week, most in reply to questions from other Twitterers. Her tweets had a warm tone and avoided political jargon where possible. Seconds after midnight on the morning after the election, she tweeted to thank her supporters. Both leaders seemed to aim their tweets directly at the voters, rather than a mainstream-media middleman. Brown also tweeted post-election to thank his supporters (Brown, 2010), but during the week beforehand he only tweeted 14 times, none of them in reply to any other Twitterers. His tweets were more casual than Gillard’s and offered some insight into his life as well as his politics. For the week before the election, it appears he took more of a ‘broadcast’ approach with his tweets, rather than using it for conversation. Despite this, social strategy manager Karalee Evans said the Greens as a whole used Twitter as a platform for dialogue with their electorates and the party was “joining into the conversations where they’re already happening” (Counihan, 2010).

A study by Alterian (Digital Media, 2010) shows that the key to reaching large audiences through social media was to understand individuals and also that audiences were paying less attention to traditional media sources. Butcher (2010) agrees and said conversing via social media is “key to extending politicians’ reach and widening the debate”. One way the Greens used social media to extend their reach was to encourage their supporters to spread the word via social media. The ABC’s Gruen Nation had commissioned advertisements for and against the Greens as part of a series. The ad was a hit, but the ABC was unable to sell the ad to the Greens. To get around this, the party emailed the clip’s YouTube link to the Greens’ supporters on 14 August and encouraged them to “share it with your friends on Facebook and Twitter” (Bennett, 2010). This resulted in the clip receiving more than 100,000 views (YouTube, 2010). The next most viewed clip in the series had less than 12,000 views, showing that the Greens’ email blast was effective in getting their supporters to spread the word. In the week leading up to the election, the most viewed clip on Labor’s YouTube channel was an anti-Abbott advertisement, viewed just over 5,000 times. Clearly, Twitter and Facebook proved effective tools in the hands of the Greens’ supporters. The Labor party had no social media supporter push to compare with this example.

With such a high proportion of Twitterers in Australia, it’s no wonder politicians are jumping on the Twitter bandwagon. While many have argued that Twitter was not used to its full potential during the 2010 election, it can be said that it was used effectively to communicate political messages, either straight from the politician or through supporters’ own social networks. The fact that Twitter has become a recognised part of mainstream media indicates that the platform has had an influence on both traditional media and voters. Twitter probably did not determine the outcome of the 2010 election, but that’s not to say that it won’t next time.

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