tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/atnix-39132/articlesATNIX – The Conversation2017-11-24T01:52:05Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/880242017-11-24T01:52:05Z2017-11-24T01:52:05ZQueensland election: One Nation dominates Twitter debate in the final weeks<p>As Queensland approaches its election day on Saturday, the social media campaign for votes continues alongside. But over the final two weeks, the focus of that campaign has gradually shifted.</p>
<p>Labor Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s plan to <a href="https://theconversation.com/twitter-analysis-shows-queensland-labor-has-put-adani-behind-them-87320">veto a potential A$1 billion loan to the Adani mine project</a> resulted in a considerable drop in Adani-related tweets directed at Queensland candidates, and that pattern has held through subsequent weeks. Labor has not entirely neutralised the Adani controversy, but the mine project is no longer the major talking point of the Twitter campaign.</p>
<p>By contrast, the most significant emerging theme of these past two weeks has been the role that Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party might play in the new parliament. We saw some of this in our previous analysis, in response to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/nov/11/queensland-election-lnp-preferences-one-nation-before-labor-in-50-seats">the LNP’s decision to direct preferences to One Nation</a> over Labor in a majority of Queensland seats. That particular discussion has now shifted to a much broader debate about the very real prospect that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/nov/21/one-nation-a-thorn-in-its-queensland-rivals-sides">One Nation may hold the balance of power</a> after the election.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196093/original/file-20171123-18006-ynsryu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196093/original/file-20171123-18006-ynsryu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196093/original/file-20171123-18006-ynsryu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196093/original/file-20171123-18006-ynsryu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196093/original/file-20171123-18006-ynsryu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196093/original/file-20171123-18006-ynsryu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196093/original/file-20171123-18006-ynsryu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196093/original/file-20171123-18006-ynsryu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Major topics in tweets by and at candidates in the 2017 Queensland election campaign.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Axel Bruns / QUT Digital Media Research Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our dataset captures the tweets posted by and directed at Queensland election candidates. Of those tweets, some 51% addressed the Adani mine or One Nation, but the emphasis has now swung considerably towards the latter. This was sparked in part by the Liberal National Party’s (LNP) preference announcement, with preferences briefly becoming a distinct major topic in their own right.</p>
<p>Labor has been quick to exploit this arrangement, in well-shared posts from the central party account. However, recent controversial footage of its own MP Jo-Ann Miller hugging Pauline Hanson on the campaign trail might have blunted this message somewhat.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"929497192355606528"}"></div></p>
<p>One Nation also featured heavily in another major topic of the second half of the campaign: schools. While <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-10/queensland-election-campaign-labor-promises-six-new-schools/9137898">Labor’s pledge to establish several new schools</a> received only moderate attention, Queensland One Nation leader <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-11/annastacia-palaszczuk-rubbishes-one-nations-safe-schools-claim/9141520?pfmredir=sm">Steve Dickson’s bizarre comments</a> about the Safe Schools anti-bullying programme was met with widespread condemnation. A tweet criticising Dickson’s subsequent apology is now the second most retweeted post of the entire campaign:</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"929955447410323456"}"></div></p>
<p>Somewhat more surprisingly, the impact of Uber and similar ridesharing services on the Queensland taxi industry has also been a minor theme throughout the campaign. This was aided by some orchestrated activity by taxi drivers, and <a href="http://www.northweststar.com.au/story/5075419/traeger-queensland-election-campaign-three-days-to-go/">supported by Katter’s Australian Party (KAP) candidate Robbie Katter</a>, who has championed their cause in several campaign events. Meanwhile, transport also figured in the Premier’s commitment to fixing the issues with troubled <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-09/labor-promises-150-million-fix-trains/9134574">new Queensland Rail rolling stock in Maryborough</a>, which generated a brief flurry of support as well as criticism.</p>
<p>These topical changes have affected the patterns of engagement with the candidates on Twitter. In total, Labor candidates still continue to be mentioned more frequently than their LNP counterparts. But over the past two weeks, this gap has closed slightly: as attention has shifted from Adani to One Nation, so have Twitter users moved to asking more questions of LNP and One Nation rather than Labor politicians. Retweets, however, continue to favour Labor by a considerable margin: its candidates have received more than four times as many retweets as all other party candidates put together.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196095/original/file-20171123-18021-1dlat5c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196095/original/file-20171123-18021-1dlat5c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196095/original/file-20171123-18021-1dlat5c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196095/original/file-20171123-18021-1dlat5c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196095/original/file-20171123-18021-1dlat5c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196095/original/file-20171123-18021-1dlat5c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196095/original/file-20171123-18021-1dlat5c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196095/original/file-20171123-18021-1dlat5c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Engagement with candidates in the 2017 Queensland election.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Axel Bruns / QUT Digital Media Research Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A network of interactions around candidate accounts (combining both @mentions and retweets over the course of the entire campaign) demonstrates the state of play at this late stage of the election campaign. Labor commands the largest engagement network, at the centre of the graph. Discussions about Adani have been prominent, and form a distinct cluster of debate that is most closely interconnected with the Labor and Greens networks. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, LNP and One Nation candidates are mentioned frequently alongside one another. These tweets are often asking about their preference arrangements or their willingness to work together in the absence of an outright majority for either major party. </p>
<p>This association is so strong, in fact, that our visualisation algorithm treats both groups as part of the same discussion cluster. Slightly to the side of this sits the Uber debate, which therefore appears to be more closely associated with – and perhaps supported by – LNP candidates than their Labor counterparts.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196092/original/file-20171123-17982-1rcwaiv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196092/original/file-20171123-17982-1rcwaiv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196092/original/file-20171123-17982-1rcwaiv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196092/original/file-20171123-17982-1rcwaiv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196092/original/file-20171123-17982-1rcwaiv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196092/original/file-20171123-17982-1rcwaiv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196092/original/file-20171123-17982-1rcwaiv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196092/original/file-20171123-17982-1rcwaiv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Network of interactions around candidate accounts in the 2017 Queensland election.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Axel Bruns / QUT Digital Media Research Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The picture that emerges here is one which points to the strengths and weaknesses of both sides of politics. For Labor, its troubled path to a firmer stance on the Adani mine may remain in environmentally conscious voters’ minds even if the online discussion has died down somewhat.</p>
<p>For the LNP, the emerging view that its best path to government is through an arrangement with One Nation will similarly dent the electorate’s enthusiasm for a change of government. That Labor commands by far the majority of retweets for its messages may give it hope, though – at least in urban electorates, where Twitter is likely to have its greatest footprint.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88024/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<h4 class="border">Disclosure</h4><p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research is supported by the ARC Future Fellowship project "Understanding Intermedia Information Flows in the Australian Online Public Sphere".</span></em></p>With Labor having largely defused the Adani issue, debate on Twitter in the final weeks of the 2017 Queensland election campaign has come to focus chiefly on the role of One Nation.Axel Bruns, Professor, Creative Industries, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/873202017-11-13T08:32:33Z2017-11-13T08:32:33ZTwitter analysis shows Queensland Labor has put Adani behind them<p>There’s still plenty of time to go in the current Queensland state election campaign, but early signs from the social media trail offer some encouragement for Labor premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. She is receiving considerably more retweets than Liberal Opposition Leader Tim Nicholls, and chatter about the controversial Adani mine project has declined in recent days.</p>
<p>Twitter and Facebook are now a standard part of the campaigning toolkit for all major parties. Previous state and federal campaigns suggest that voters who’ve already seen a party’s messages in their social media feeds may be a little more open to a chat when the local candidate comes doorknocking. (<a href="https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/australianlaborparty/pages/2378/attachments/original/1403229510/2013_Campaign_Review_FINAL.pdf">Labor’s internal review of its 2013 campaign</a> stresses the combination of online and in-person campaigning, for example.)</p>
<p>On Twitter, we’ve identified 60 Labor and 48 Liberal National Party candidates, as well as central party and campaign accounts. The Greens are represented by 34 accounts, while One Nation and Katter’s Australian Party each have only a handful of tweeting candidates. Combined, over the first two weeks of the campaign, they’ve sent some 3,300 tweets in total, and received some 54,000 @mentions and retweets.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194224/original/file-20171112-29324-11dl9kh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194224/original/file-20171112-29324-11dl9kh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194224/original/file-20171112-29324-11dl9kh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194224/original/file-20171112-29324-11dl9kh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194224/original/file-20171112-29324-11dl9kh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194224/original/file-20171112-29324-11dl9kh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194224/original/file-20171112-29324-11dl9kh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194224/original/file-20171112-29324-11dl9kh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Twitter @mentions and retweets per party, 30 Oct. to 12 Nov. 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Axel Bruns / QUT Digital Media Research Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These are far from evenly distributed, however. @mentions of parties and politicians tend to favour the incumbent, and this is not surprising: more of the debate on social media and elsewhere will be about the track record of the current government, rather than about the promises of the opposition. </p>
<p>At 30,000 tweets, Labor accounts have received nearly double the @mentions of the LNP (17,000) to date, and this is in line with <a href="https://theconversation.com/ausvotes-a-final-update-from-the-social-media-hustings-61922">patterns in previous state and federal elections</a>.</p>
<p>It’s the retweets that tell a more remarkable story. The nearly 7,000 retweets for Labor candidates’ tweets amount to more than twelve times the 570 retweets received by the LNP. During an election campaign, retweets usually <em>do</em> indicate some level of endorsement. </p>
<p>The pattern in this election is considerably different from recent elections. In 2016, for example, the incumbent federal Coalition received <a href="https://theconversation.com/ausvotes-a-final-update-from-the-social-media-hustings-61922">far fewer retweets</a> than the Labor opposition. In the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-queensland-election-on-twitter-some-key-qldvotes-patterns-36507">2015 Queensland election</a>, Campbell Newman’s incumbent Liberal National Party government also struggled to attract retweets for its messages.</p>
<p>These patterns do not point to a significant mood for change or substantial willingness amongst Twitter users to promote the LNP’s campaign messages. Conservative commentators may want to chalk this up to a purported left-wing bias in the Australian Twittersphere – but that claim is not borne out by <a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-twitter-is-more-diverse-than-you-think-76864">our analysis</a>, showing Twitter contains sizeable communities of both left-wing and right-wing supporters.</p>
<h2>Adani and One Nation generate heat for the major parties</h2>
<p>Labor also seems to have weathered the early onslaught of critical coverage well.</p>
<p>The first week of the campaign saw a substantial volume of debate about the controversial Adani mine project, which divides opinion between the southeastern population centres around Brisbane (where concerns about environmental impacts are high) and the regional centres near the mine (which anticipate greater job prospects from the mine). </p>
<p>During week one some 1,500 tweets per day, both by and to candidates, contained the word “Adani”. Hashtags related to the controversy (#adani, #stopadani, #coralnotcoal, and others) were the most prominent topical hashtags in our overall dataset, in addition to generic tags like #qldvotes, #qldpol, and #auspol. </p>
<p>The story is further complicated by the fact that, in his role at PricewaterhouseCoopers, Premier Palaszczuk’s partner <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-12/queensland-election-premier-not-aware-pwc-donation-to-labor/9142252">was involved</a> in Adani’s application for a A$1 billion loan. Palaszczuk announced at the end of the first week of campaigning that <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-03/premier-annastacia-palaszczuk-veto-qld-government-adani-brisbane/9117594">she would veto that loan</a> if the application were successful.</p>
<p>Judging by our Twitter data, this veto threat appears to have neutralised the Adani debate to some extent. “Adani” tweets by and to candidates declined from 1,500 to less than 600 in week two. The overall volume of tweets by and to these accounts has also dropped from over 5,000 to some 3,700 per day in week two. </p>
<p>This shift in position may indicate that Labor believes that supporting Adani will lose more votes in the southeast than it will gain further north. Our social media patterns seem to bear out this view.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, with Pauline Hanson’s much-publicised arrival on the campaign trail the second week has seen more discussion about the role that One Nation may play in the next parliament. In particular, the announcement on the evening of Friday 10 November that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/nov/11/queensland-election-lnp-preferences-one-nation-before-labor-in-50-seats">the LNP will preference One Nation over Labor</a> in more than half the seats in Queensland has already generated substantial debate. Some 20% of tweets by and to candidates on the following Saturday included keywords related to One Nation and/or preferencing.</p>
<p>While the LNP announcement – after the evening news on a Friday – was probably timed to minimise media scrutiny of its decision, it remains to be seen whether this debate will carry over into the third week of the campaign. Labor will no doubt seek to exploit this preference arrangement to attract traditional conservative voters who remain critical of One Nation.</p>
<p>And finally, if you’re still uncertain about which hashtag to use to join the debate: in tweets by and to candidate accounts, plain old #qldvotes leads #qldvotes2017 by more than ten to one so far. It’s a landslide.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87320/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<h4 class="border">Disclosure</h4><p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research is supported by the ARC Future Fellowship project "Understanding Intermedia Information Flows in the Australian Online Public Sphere".</span></em></p>Twitter activity over the first two weeks of the Queensland election campaign shows good support for Labor and a slowdown of the Adani debate.Axel Bruns, Professor, Creative Industries, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/844592017-09-28T23:08:12Z2017-09-28T23:08:12ZThe beautiful social media game: A-League winners and losers on Twitter<p>Social media are integral for Australian professional sports – teams have professionalised their pages, and official hashtags allow us to connect around live matches. But my analysis shows that social media success isn’t predictable when it comes to sports. </p>
<p>The most successful team doesn’t have the most followers. The highest-profile games don’t create the most engagement. And social media strategies diverge as much as on-field ones. </p>
<p>Social media are proving particularly important for niche and growing sports, given their limited coverage in the mainstream media. <a href="https://eprints.qut.edu.au/85129/">Twitter was crucial</a> for netball at a time when broadcasters were ignoring it. Similarly, A-League teams have <a href="https://eprints.qut.edu.au/66328/">taken to Twitter more effectively</a> than their counterparts in much bigger leagues, such as the English Premier League or the German Bundesliga. </p>
<h2>The A-League’s Twitter leaderboard</h2>
<p>In terms of followers, one team stands head and shoulders above the rest. It’s not the 2017 champions Sydney FC, but their cross-town rivals, the Western Sydney Wanderers. Sydney FC had nearly 64,000 followers by the end of the 2016/17 season. The Western Sydney Wanderers had 125,000. </p>
<p>The A-League’s most successful team, Melbourne Victory, sat between the two with 88,000.</p>
<p>Indeed, in spite of a somewhat disappointing season, the Wanderers picked up an additional 24,000 followers during the season. This is almost as many as the least followed team, the Central Coast Mariners, have in total. </p>
<p>The Wanderers’ strong following is most likely due to the club’s 2014 triumph in the AFC Champions League. This translated into a substantial volume of audience interest on Twitter. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187200/original/file-20170922-17241-1kkgubd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187200/original/file-20170922-17241-1kkgubd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187200/original/file-20170922-17241-1kkgubd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187200/original/file-20170922-17241-1kkgubd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187200/original/file-20170922-17241-1kkgubd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187200/original/file-20170922-17241-1kkgubd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187200/original/file-20170922-17241-1kkgubd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187200/original/file-20170922-17241-1kkgubd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A-League teams’ follower development over the course of the 2016/17 season.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Axel Bruns / QUT Digital Media Research Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Twitter engagement largely mirrors city population sizes. In order, the Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane teams receive the greatest volume of mentions and retweets. Smaller-town clubs like the Newcastle Jets or the Central Coast Mariners, along with the Wellington Phoenix, attract much less attention.</p>
<h2>Taking it to the other teams</h2>
<p>Whether or how teams engaged with each other on Twitter was one of the major ways in which social media strategies differed. </p>
<p>Over the course of the past season, Western Sydney Wanderers and Melbourne City hardly acknowledged their competition at all. They mentioned each other team barely more than ten times on Twitter. </p>
<p>The Brisbane Roar and Wellington Phoenix, on the other hand, took it to their opponents on Twitter as much as on the field. They mentioned and retweeted each opposition team some 60 to 90 times. Part of the story here is that the Roar account live-tweets most of its A-League, W-League, NPL and other matches, frequently mentioning opposing teams by their Twitter handles.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187199/original/file-20170922-17306-1fmtqw5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187199/original/file-20170922-17306-1fmtqw5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187199/original/file-20170922-17306-1fmtqw5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=118&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187199/original/file-20170922-17306-1fmtqw5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=118&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187199/original/file-20170922-17306-1fmtqw5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=118&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187199/original/file-20170922-17306-1fmtqw5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=149&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187199/original/file-20170922-17306-1fmtqw5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=149&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187199/original/file-20170922-17306-1fmtqw5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=149&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A-League team accounts’ interactions over the course of the 2016/17 season.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Axel Bruns / QUT Digital Media Research Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The ten teams mostly mentioned themselves – mainly because they retweeted messages that mentioned their own accounts. It may not be surprising to followers of the A-League that Sydney FC was the most self-referential during the past season, while Melbourne Victory’s @gomvfc was least self-centred.</p>
<p>There’s little evidence, too, of the great rivalries that the A-League organisation has been keen to promote. Fans may eagerly anticipate the Sydney and Melbourne intra-city derbies, but the teams involved hardly acknowledge each other’s existence online. </p>
<p>During the 2016/17 season, Melbourne Victory tweeted 73 times at the Brisbane Roar, for instance, but only 12 times at Melbourne City. Sydney FC mentioned the Central Coast Mariners in 43 tweets, but the Western Sydney Wanderers only nine times. No love lost there, then.</p>
<h2>A hashtag lasts 90 minutes</h2>
<p>Building on its collaboration with Twitter Australia, the A-League has adopted a standard system of hashtags that it encourages fans and teams to use as they tweet about each match. These take the form of #HOMEvsAWAY, with both teams represented by well-established three-letter acronyms. One-third of the 1 million tweets by, at and about the A-League teams over the 2016/17 season used these hashtags.</p>
<p>However, here too the major derbies fail to draw the crowd that the A-League might have expected. Altogether, the Melbourne derbies produced fewer than 2,500 tweets. And with only 3,100 tweets, their Sydney counterparts fared little better (the scoreless #SYDvWSW match in January generated only 839 tweets in total). Least popular, however, are the matches that make up the so-called “F3 Derby” between the Newcastle Jets and Central Coast Mariners – their three clashes generated barely 700 tweets in total.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187201/original/file-20170922-17256-15ibnxz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187201/original/file-20170922-17256-15ibnxz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187201/original/file-20170922-17256-15ibnxz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=213&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187201/original/file-20170922-17256-15ibnxz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=213&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187201/original/file-20170922-17256-15ibnxz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=213&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187201/original/file-20170922-17256-15ibnxz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=268&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187201/original/file-20170922-17256-15ibnxz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=268&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187201/original/file-20170922-17256-15ibnxz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=268&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A-League match hashtag activity over the course of the 2016/17 season.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Axel Bruns / QUT Digital Media Research Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The most bankable teams, meanwhile, are the two Melbourne clubs and Brisbane Roar at home, as well as Perth, Melbourne Victory and the Western Sydney Wanderers away – on average, whenever they step on the field, football fans are most likely to get amongst it on the match hashtag as well. </p>
<p>The two high-scoring clashes between Melbourne City and Perth Glory, the tense Wanderers visits to Brisbane (especially including a penalty shootout in the play-offs), and the Berisha-inflamed grudge matches between Melbourne Victory and Brisbane Roar each rated especially well with Twitter audiences. </p>
<p>If the past season is any guide, rather than focusing overly on the not-so-classic derby matches, it is these rivalries that the A-League may wish to promote in the 2017/18 round. Let the fans decide which clashes they are especially passionate about: don’t assume that intra-city contests necessarily generate audience engagement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84459/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<h4 class="border">Disclosure</h4><p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research is supported by the ARC Future Fellowship project "Understanding Intermedia Information Flows in the Australian Online Public Sphere". Axel Bruns supports the Brisbane Roar.
</span></em></p>The A-League has embraced social media. But analysis shows success online doesn’t correspond to success on the field.Axel Bruns, Professor, Creative Industries, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/837752017-09-14T23:05:03Z2017-09-14T23:05:03ZAn ABC News story shows how strange “going viral” can be<p>ABC News has now firmly established itself as the nation’s third most visited online news source, according to data from the Australian Twitter News Index (ATNIX). But one specific ABC News story shows social media’s power to reach large and unexpected audiences. </p>
<p>A republication of a Conversation article exploring <a href="http://abc.net.au/news/8831826">what the bible really has to say about same-sex marriage</a> accounted for some 9,000 shares on the 24th of August, and nearly 16,000 for the entire month. ABC News saw 18,700 tweets in total on the 24th, which is nearly twice the number they can expect on an ordinary day. </p>
<p>But the story doesn’t end there. Some 15,200 of the tweets linking to this story are due to a single post written in Korean and retweeted widely. From an Australian marriage equality survey, to an Irish-based bible scholar to going viral in Korea, news on Twitter can sometimes travel in mysterious, roundabout ways.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the version of this article published <a href="https://theconversation.com/to-christians-arguing-no-on-marriage-equality-the-bible-is-not-decisive-82498">on The Conversation itself</a> received only 300 shares on Twitter.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185348/original/file-20170910-32271-12dx7c2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185348/original/file-20170910-32271-12dx7c2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185348/original/file-20170910-32271-12dx7c2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185348/original/file-20170910-32271-12dx7c2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185348/original/file-20170910-32271-12dx7c2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185348/original/file-20170910-32271-12dx7c2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185348/original/file-20170910-32271-12dx7c2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185348/original/file-20170910-32271-12dx7c2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australian Twitter News Index, Aug. 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Axel Bruns / QUT Digital Media Research Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Because of its paywall, The Australian’s articles are not usually widely shared on Twitter. But from mid-August onwards, a story on the role of <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/investigations/trumps-bid-for-sydney-casino-killed-off-by-mob-connections/news-story/65a0e5289cc924722f988bdca4b01e9b">Donald Trump’s alleged mafia links</a> in the rejection of his 1987 Sydney casino bid was shared some 17,500 times. This amounts to 21% of all the tweets linking to The Australian throughout the month.</p>
<p>Here, too, we can observe several interesting developments in the redistribution of the story. From its local origins Australian users forwarded it to a variety of US-based political commentators, who shared the article in their own right. It’s a clear indication of how symbiotic the relationship between journalism and social media has now become: news outlets publish their stories, but social media users boost their visibility by circulating them through their own networks.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185350/original/file-20170910-32284-hm3wdi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185350/original/file-20170910-32284-hm3wdi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185350/original/file-20170910-32284-hm3wdi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185350/original/file-20170910-32284-hm3wdi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185350/original/file-20170910-32284-hm3wdi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185350/original/file-20170910-32284-hm3wdi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185350/original/file-20170910-32284-hm3wdi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185350/original/file-20170910-32284-hm3wdi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australian Twitter News Index, Aug. 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Axel Bruns / QUT Digital Media Research Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But moving away from these viral stories, the other leading stories in August diverged notably. </p>
<p>In addition to its republished Conversation article, ABC News received a substantial number of Twitter shares for original content addressing topics as diverse as <a href="http://abc.net.au/news/8785174">former Liberal minister Bruce Billson’s failure to disclose a lobby group salary</a> during his time in parliament (3,200 tweets), a Radio National Background Briefing on <a href="http://abc.net.au/news/8813604">the role of the Pine Gap installation in U.S. battlefield operations</a> (2,000 tweets), medical findings suggesting that <a href="http://abc.net.au/news/8785566">vitamin B3 supplements can prevent miscarriages</a> (1,400 tweets), and the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-23/senior-politicians-rush-to-disclose-free-foxtel-subscriptions/8832532">belated disclosure of free Foxtel subscriptions</a> by senior federal politicians (1,400 tweets).</p>
<p>At the Sydney Morning Herald, meanwhile, the focus of the most tweeted stories is a great deal more narrow, largely revolving around refugee policy and the same-sex marriage survey. Here, the prominent stories include early reporting on <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-gy4vnh.html">the government’s cancellation of income support for asylum seekers</a> (3,600 tweets), the <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-gy5ci7.html">federal immigration minister’s labelling of asylum seekers’ lawyers as “un-Australian”</a> (2,500 tweets), the Catholic church’s <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-gxy4ds.html">threat to dismiss staff entering into same-sex marriages</a> (1,800 tweets), former Human Rights Commission president <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-gy29zp.html">Gillian Triggs’s attack on the “post-truths” peddled by the government</a> (1,700 tweets), and the <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-gxskoj.html">lack of regulations against malicious campaign material</a> in the lead-up to the marriage equality postal survey (1,600 tweets).</p>
<p>Whether it is deliberately driven by news editors or determined by social media users voting with their tweets, we see in this a gradual diversification of these outlets’ roles in the social media news landscape. ABC News remains the news generalist while the Sydney Morning Herald becomes a specialist for the coverage of federal politics. Whether this arrangement persists only while specific issues and debates are prominent remains to be seen.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185351/original/file-20170910-32266-1oayppp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185351/original/file-20170910-32266-1oayppp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185351/original/file-20170910-32266-1oayppp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185351/original/file-20170910-32266-1oayppp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185351/original/file-20170910-32266-1oayppp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185351/original/file-20170910-32266-1oayppp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185351/original/file-20170910-32266-1oayppp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185351/original/file-20170910-32266-1oayppp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Total visits to selected Australian news and opinion sites, Aug. 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Data courtesy of Hitwise, a division of Connexity.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Beyond social media, however, online news readership trends do not mirror these patterns. Here, News.com.au continues to reign supreme and the Sydney Morning Herald leads the best of the rest. ABC News has now firmly established itself as the third most visited Australian news site. </p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://connexity.com/au/hitwise/">Hitwise data</a> on total site visits per month (as you can see in the chart above), ABC News pulled ahead of Nine News for the first time in June this year and has remained in a solid third place since.</p>
<p>This shift is unrelated to any short-term viral news trends. This dataset counts only site visits from Australian users, so the unexpected Korean audience for ABC News’ bible story would not figure here. And even major viral stories would account only for a small subset of the total number of visits to a news site. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185349/original/file-20170910-24217-1o8aca5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185349/original/file-20170910-24217-1o8aca5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185349/original/file-20170910-24217-1o8aca5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185349/original/file-20170910-24217-1o8aca5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185349/original/file-20170910-24217-1o8aca5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185349/original/file-20170910-24217-1o8aca5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185349/original/file-20170910-24217-1o8aca5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185349/original/file-20170910-24217-1o8aca5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Total visits to selected Australian news and opinion sites, Aug. 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Data courtesy of Hitwise, a division of Connexity.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This makes ABC News’ upward trajectory all the more remarkable. In fact, even though the online news market in Australia is relatively stable, what we see here is a genuine flow of online audiences towards the ABC in recent months. Time will tell whether this is as high as ABC News can go – or whether eventually even the Sydney Morning Herald might come into reach.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83775/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<h4 class="border">Disclosure</h4><p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research is supported by the ARC Future Fellowship project "Understanding Intermedia Information Flows in the Australian Online Public Sphere". Axel Bruns is collaborating with The Conversation in the ARC Linkage project "Amplifying Public Value: Scholarly Contributions' Impact on Public Debate". Data on Australian Internet users’ news browsing patterns are provided courtesy of Hitwise, a division of Connexity (<a href="http://connexity.com/au/hitwise/">http://connexity.com/au/hitwise/</a>).</span></em></p>ABC News has quietly moved into third place in the domestic online news market and had a piece that went unexpectedly viral in Korea.Axel Bruns, Professor, Creative Industries, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/819882017-08-03T02:48:48Z2017-08-03T02:48:48ZABC News’ long-form journalism pays off on Twitter<p>As they face a changing market for journalistic content, Australian news organisations are increasingly being forced to experiment with new approaches to telling their stories. The Australian Twitter News Index (ATNIX) for July 2017 shows that some new formats for investigative reports can generate considerable audience engagement – but old-fashioned commentary and opinion pieces also still manage to attract an audience.</p>
<p>Most notably, on 10 July 2017 ABC News recorded a significant increase in the number of tweets sharing its articles. This was due entirely to <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-09/did-trumps-g20-performance-indicate-us-decline-as-world-power/8691538?WT.mc_id=newsmail&WT.tsrc=Newsmail">political editor Chris Uhlmann’s strident criticism of the Trump administration</a> (2,700 tweets that day), published from the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hamburg. </p>
<p>Given the strong and well-documented international response to Uhlmann’s comments, the article actually receives fewer tweets than we might expect. His comments were republished or excerpted in text and video by news outlets around the world, so Twitter users did not necessarily need to go searching for the original piece.</p>
<p>Still, over the course of the entire month the story was shared some 5,300 times on Twitter, making it the most widely shared ABC News article in July by a considerable margin. In keeping with a pattern established over past months, by contrast, the other major ABC News stories for the month retain a strong domestic focus. </p>
<p>A major report on <a href="http://abc.net.au/news/8652028">the sexual abuse of women by evangelical Christians</a> was shared 2,300 times; coverage of <a href="http://abc.net.au/news/8687268">Elon Musk’s plans to build the world’s largest lithium ion battery in South Australia</a> received 2,200 tweets. Another special report on leaked documents exposing <a href="http://abc.net.au/news/8466642">human rights abuses by Australian special forces in Afghanistan</a> was shared 2,100 times; and coverage of <a href="http://abc.net.au/news/8678466">a new map of historic massacres of indigenous Australians since 1788</a> was shared in 1,500 tweets.</p>
<p>The presence of two special reports is especially noteworthy here. These reports are long-form and investigative, presented in a format distinct from ordinary ABC News articles. We’ve seen these appear from time to time, and the inclusion of two such dossiers in ABC News’ most shared articles during July clearly shows the strong public demand to this form of content. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180812/original/file-20170803-19918-ngu0sr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180812/original/file-20170803-19918-ngu0sr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180812/original/file-20170803-19918-ngu0sr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180812/original/file-20170803-19918-ngu0sr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180812/original/file-20170803-19918-ngu0sr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180812/original/file-20170803-19918-ngu0sr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180812/original/file-20170803-19918-ngu0sr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180812/original/file-20170803-19918-ngu0sr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australian Twitter News Index, July 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Axel Bruns / QUT Digital Media Research Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the midst of considerable staff cuts in the commercial media, the public broadcaster is now one of the last major news organisations in Australia that is still able to conduct complex investigative reporting on key public interest issues. The response on Twitter indicates that the national news audience is rewarding such efforts with its engagement.</p>
<p>The Sydney Morning Herald did not manage to attract quite as much attention this month. Its top story for July is an opinion piece decrying <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-gxb6qh.html">conservative media outlets’ sustained <em>ad feminam</em> attacks on Yassmin Abdel-Magied</a> (1,700 tweets). </p>
<p>Other key articles include a report on UN claims that <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-gxhi1o.html">the Australian government reneged on a refugee resettlement agreement</a> (1,500 tweets), on <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-gx7mv5.html">the failure of Philip Morris’s court case against plain tobacco packaging laws</a> (1,400 tweets), and on <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-gx820x.html">federal MPs’ refusal to sign up to the “Fitzgerald Principles” for ethical conduct</a> (1,300 tweets). Another opinion piece rounds out the top five: <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-gxi2nk.html">Ross Gittins’s criticism of the federal government’s new homeland security regime</a> is shared in 1,200 tweets.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180810/original/file-20170802-8795-4p1rrh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180810/original/file-20170802-8795-4p1rrh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180810/original/file-20170802-8795-4p1rrh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180810/original/file-20170802-8795-4p1rrh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180810/original/file-20170802-8795-4p1rrh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180810/original/file-20170802-8795-4p1rrh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180810/original/file-20170802-8795-4p1rrh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180810/original/file-20170802-8795-4p1rrh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australian Twitter News Index, July 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Axel Bruns / QUT Digital Media Research Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s striking that two of the top five SMH articles in July were opinion pieces. In light of the commercial difficulties Fairfax is facing, it may well choose to focus increasingly on comparatively inexpensive-to-produce commentary, while ceding yet more of the business of investigative journalism to ABC News and other publications. </p>
<p>Longer-term trends in content production and audience engagement will see such strategies emerge more clearly.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180811/original/file-20170803-23530-17j2lzx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180811/original/file-20170803-23530-17j2lzx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180811/original/file-20170803-23530-17j2lzx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180811/original/file-20170803-23530-17j2lzx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180811/original/file-20170803-23530-17j2lzx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180811/original/file-20170803-23530-17j2lzx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180811/original/file-20170803-23530-17j2lzx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180811/original/file-20170803-23530-17j2lzx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Total visits to selected Australian news and opinion sites, July 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Data courtesy of Hitwise, a division of Connexity.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://connexity.com/au/hitwise/">The data</a> on the total number of visits to each news site by Australian internet users see ABC News well ahead of nearest rivals Nine News and The Age for the second month in a row; this extends an unexpected decline especially in Nine News’ numbers since the end of May. </p>
<p>However, news.com.au and the Sydney Morning Herald still remain well ahead of the pack and their comparative market dominance seems unlikely to change any time soon.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180813/original/file-20170803-16521-ya5swy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180813/original/file-20170803-16521-ya5swy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180813/original/file-20170803-16521-ya5swy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180813/original/file-20170803-16521-ya5swy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180813/original/file-20170803-16521-ya5swy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180813/original/file-20170803-16521-ya5swy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180813/original/file-20170803-16521-ya5swy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180813/original/file-20170803-16521-ya5swy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Total visits to selected Australian news and opinion sites, July 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Data courtesy of Hitwise, a division of Connexity.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s also notable that at a domestic level, ABC News does not record a major increase in visits as a result of Chris Uhlmann’s G20 piece on 10 July; this points clearly to the fact that most of the additional attention to that article came from overseas. </p>
<p>Twitter may have played its role in the viral dissemination of Uhlmann’s criticism; but, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-10/how-chris-uhlmanns-g20-takedown-of-donald-trump-went-viral/8695144">as we now know from subsequent coverage</a>, mainstream reporting and republishing of Uhlmann’s views by major US and UK outlets soon followed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81988/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<h4 class="border">Disclosure</h4><p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research is supported by the ARC Future Fellowship project "Understanding Intermedia Information Flows in the Australian Online Public Sphere". Axel Bruns is collaborating with The Conversation in the ARC Linkage project "Amplifying Public Value: Scholarly Contributions' Impact on Public Debate". Data on Australian Internet users’ news browsing patterns are provided courtesy of Hitwise, a division of Connexity (<a href="http://connexity.com/au/hitwise/">http://connexity.com/au/hitwise/</a>).</span></em></p>ABC News’ investment in long-form journalism is generating strong take-up on Twitter.Axel Bruns, Professor, Creative Industries, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/814872017-07-26T02:04:25Z2017-07-26T02:04:25ZTurnbull’s Trump parody was only a brief Twitter hit in June<p>Secretly recorded video of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull impersonating Donald Trump was a brief Twitter hit in June. But the month was dominated by Australian federal politics and other domestic issues, as Twitter users largely ignored news from Syria, North Korea and other trouble spots.</p>
<p>Beyond Turnbull’s impersonation, charges against George Pell and the Australian Census were the two major stories highlighted by the Australian Twitter News Index (ATNIX) in June. ATNIX tracks the sharing of articles from Australian news and opinion sites on Twitter.</p>
<p>Nine News broke the story of Malcolm Turnbull’s Trump impersonation and saw the biggest increase in Twitter engagement. <a href="http://www.9news.com.au/national/2017/06/15/14/18/malcolm-turnbull-impersonates-donald-trump-in-leaked-audio">Nine’s post of the leaked video</a> racked up more than 11,000 tweets over June 15 and 16 alone. This was significantly higher than Nine’s long-term average of 1,000 to 1,500 tweets per day, which it quickly returned to. </p>
<p>This suggests that isolated news scoops do not change well-established patterns of audience attention for more than a few days.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179743/original/file-20170726-30134-k0gbk0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179743/original/file-20170726-30134-k0gbk0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179743/original/file-20170726-30134-k0gbk0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179743/original/file-20170726-30134-k0gbk0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179743/original/file-20170726-30134-k0gbk0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179743/original/file-20170726-30134-k0gbk0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179743/original/file-20170726-30134-k0gbk0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179743/original/file-20170726-30134-k0gbk0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australian Twitter News Index, June 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Axel Bruns / QUT Digital Media Research Centre</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179744/original/file-20170726-30149-117xo4g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179744/original/file-20170726-30149-117xo4g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179744/original/file-20170726-30149-117xo4g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179744/original/file-20170726-30149-117xo4g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179744/original/file-20170726-30149-117xo4g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179744/original/file-20170726-30149-117xo4g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179744/original/file-20170726-30149-117xo4g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179744/original/file-20170726-30149-117xo4g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australian Twitter News Index, June 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Axel Bruns / QUT Digital Media Research Centre</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other widely shared stories during June included ABC News’ exposé on <a href="http://abc.net.au/news/8620128">food made from dog meat being sold to unsuspecting tourists in Bali</a> (3,100 tweets), its reports of <a href="http://abc.net.au/news/8547668">charges laid against Cardinal George Pell</a> over historic sex offences (2,000 tweets), and its inventive <a href="http://abc.net.au/news/8634318">visualisation of the results of the 2016 Australian Census</a> (1,900 tweets).</p>
<p>The <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-gx0v8y.html">charges against George Pell</a> also received a strong response at the Sydney Morning Herald (3,300 tweets). An <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-gwhuyx.html">open letter</a> by Martina Navratilova accusing Margaret Court of homophobia also generated considerable interest (1,900 tweets), as did a report on Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-gqzauy.html">suspected links with Chinese political donors</a> (1,700 tweets).</p>
<p><a href="http://connexity.com/au/hitwise/">Hitwise</a> data on the total number of visits to leading Australian news and opinion sites reveals a similar picture. Nine News received a brief boost from the leaked video of Malcolm Turnbull’s Trump impersonation. Despite this, ABC News managed to pull ahead of Nine to become the third most visited Australian news sites in the month.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179745/original/file-20170726-20161-1p1pa84.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179745/original/file-20170726-20161-1p1pa84.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179745/original/file-20170726-20161-1p1pa84.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179745/original/file-20170726-20161-1p1pa84.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179745/original/file-20170726-20161-1p1pa84.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179745/original/file-20170726-20161-1p1pa84.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179745/original/file-20170726-20161-1p1pa84.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179745/original/file-20170726-20161-1p1pa84.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Total visits to selected Australian news and opinion sites, June 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Data courtesy of Hitwise, a division of Connexity.</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179746/original/file-20170726-2133-1osfgv9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179746/original/file-20170726-2133-1osfgv9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179746/original/file-20170726-2133-1osfgv9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179746/original/file-20170726-2133-1osfgv9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179746/original/file-20170726-2133-1osfgv9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=226&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179746/original/file-20170726-2133-1osfgv9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179746/original/file-20170726-2133-1osfgv9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179746/original/file-20170726-2133-1osfgv9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">AHNIX June.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Data courtesy of Hitwise, a division of Connexity.</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The strong showing for the national broadcaster reflects a long-term trend. In recent years, total site visits to The Age and the Daily Mail have declined slightly, while Nine News has stagnated and ABC News has grown. If the trend continues, ABC News will permanently establish its position as the third most visited Australian news site.</p>
<p>It is remarkable that Australian Twitter was <a href="https://theconversation.com/schapelle-corby-fails-to-draw-a-twitter-audience-78914">once again</a> caught up in domestic issues – in spite of the considerable global instability caused by Brexit, Trump, the concerns over Syria and North Korea, and various other trouble spots. This indicates, at least in part, that we have now incorporated these daily uncertainties into our everyday lives: we no longer feel the need to share news stories about them on a daily basis. </p>
<p>It also means that those of us who continue to monitor these situations closely are more likely to consume and share news from closer to the source: for instance, by sharing news from British or American outlets rather than waiting for Australian media to recapitulate the latest developments.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>ATNIX is based on tracking all tweets which contain links pointing to the URLs of a large selection of leading Australian news and opinion sites (even if those links have been shortened at some point). Datasets for those sites which cover more than just news and opinion (abc.net.au, sbs.com.au, ninemsn.com.au) are filtered to exclude the non-news sections of those sites (e.g. abc.net.au/tv, catchup.ninemsn.com.au).</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81487/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<h4 class="border">Disclosure</h4><p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research is supported by the ARC Future Fellowship project "Understanding Intermedia Information Flows in the Australian Online Public Sphere". Axel Bruns is collaborating with The Conversation in the ARC Linkage project "Amplifying Public Value: Scholarly Contributions' Impact on Public Debate". Data on Australian Internet users’ news browsing patterns are provided courtesy of Hitwise, a division of Connexity (<a href="http://connexity.com/au/hitwise/">http://connexity.com/au/hitwise/</a>).</span></em></p>Australian Twitter users largely ignored news from Syria, North Korea and other trouble spots in June, focussing instead on domestic politics.Axel Bruns, Professor, Creative Industries, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/789142017-06-07T23:32:47Z2017-06-07T23:32:47ZSchapelle Corby fails to draw a Twitter audience<p>Between the bombshell announcement of further deep staff cuts at Fairfax publications, subsequent strike action by its journalists, the handing down of the 2017 federal budget, and the much-publicised return of drug smuggler Schapelle Corby to Australia, the news in May was surprisingly strongly focused on domestic Australian issues.</p>
<p>But not all of these matters were reflected equally strongly in the Australian Twitter News Index (ATNIX) for the month. ATNIX tracks the sharing of articles from Australian news and opinion sites on Twitter.</p>
<p>The major story in the Australian news industry itself during May was <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-03/fairfax-media-cut-further-125-editorial-staff-in-restructure/8492738">the staff strike at Fairfax</a>, triggered by significant job cuts across the editorial offices of the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, and other publications. The walkout – which also affected Fairfax’s coverage of the federal budget – clearly received considerable sympathy from Australia’s Twitter users; several well-connected Twitter users in Australia posted calls to boycott Fairfax sites and refrain from sharing their articles during this time.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"860625159790526464"}"></div></p>
<p>As a result, during the period of the strike on 3 to 10 May, sharing rates for articles in the leading Fairfax publications declined precipitously. Both SMH and The Age only return to standard day-to-day sharing levels on Twitter by the middle of the month.</p>
<p>Indeed, the Sydney Morning Herald’s weakness over the course of the strike is so pronounced that it very nearly enables perennially third-placed site news.com.au to catch up. news.com.au’s strong performance is driven in part also by its attention-grabbing coverage of <a href="http://www.news.com.au/news-story/b628f1e1ca3813a29307398dabb4f589">a “mystery monster” washing up on the shore of an Indonesian island</a>, which went viral well beyond the site’s ordinary Australian audience. The article was shared in some 4,600 tweets on 13 May alone, and in almost 5,800 tweets over the course of the entire month.</p>
<p>Another Sydney paper, the Daily Telegraph, doesn’t usually show up on ATNIX, as few Twitter users appear prepared to publicly share the stories they read on its site. However, in May it too records a brief but major spike in sharing, for its coverage of <a href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment/sydney-confidential/news-story/8a8f82a38746dff4d6204aa750bde3f9">Korean boy band BTS’s arrival in Sydney</a> (4,400 shares on 25 May). This is another example of an Australian news story spreading well beyond the national audience.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172369/original/file-20170606-18469-1swg5yt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172369/original/file-20170606-18469-1swg5yt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172369/original/file-20170606-18469-1swg5yt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172369/original/file-20170606-18469-1swg5yt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172369/original/file-20170606-18469-1swg5yt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172369/original/file-20170606-18469-1swg5yt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172369/original/file-20170606-18469-1swg5yt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172369/original/file-20170606-18469-1swg5yt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australian Twitter News Index, May 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Axel Bruns / QUT Digital Media Research Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Meanwhile, the return of drug smuggler Schapelle Corby from Bali on 27 May barely even rates a mention in the Australian Twittersphere. This is even in spite of, or quite possibly because of, the breathless coverage of Corby’s release by the mainstream media. While the leading commercial TV networks even interrupted their scheduled programming to bring us shaky dashcam footage of Corby’s progress from her Balinese residence to the airport, none of the most shared news links on Twitter during this time relate to the story. </p>
<p>ABC News does perform exceptionally well during these final days of the month – but the stories that drive that performance are about <a href="http://abc.net.au/news/8570158">U.S. Senator John McCain’s visit to Australia</a> (2,600 shares), and <a href="http://abc.net.au/news/8567166">a fisherman’s close encounter with a great white shark</a> (1,100 shares). Meanwhile, Nine News and Yahoo! 7 News receive practically no attention from Twitter users for their efforts in covering the Corby saga.</p>
<p>This pattern of disinterest is also reflected in <a href="http://connexity.com/au/hitwise/">Hitwise data</a> on the total number of visits to these Australian news sites. Despite the hype, the last few days of May appear utterly ordinary: Nine News and Yahoo! 7 News, along with most other news sites, fail to see any notable influx of visitors as a result of this latest development in the Corby saga. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172370/original/file-20170606-28191-4ddn41.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172370/original/file-20170606-28191-4ddn41.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172370/original/file-20170606-28191-4ddn41.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172370/original/file-20170606-28191-4ddn41.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172370/original/file-20170606-28191-4ddn41.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172370/original/file-20170606-28191-4ddn41.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172370/original/file-20170606-28191-4ddn41.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172370/original/file-20170606-28191-4ddn41.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Total visits to selected Australian news and opinion sites, May 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Data courtesy of Hitwise, a division of Connexity.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Meanwhile, in spite of the considerable impact on how much its articles were shared on Twitter, the total number of visits to Fairfax sites during the staff strike appears to decline only slightly against the long-term average. Readers might not have advertised in tweets that they continued to read the SMH and The Age during this time, but continue to read they did, for the most part. The 37.8 million site visits to the SMH in May, for instance, are virtually unchanged from previous months.</p>
<p>It’s notable, though, that on budget Tuesday and the following Wednesday (9 and 10 May), it is ABC News that performs well above average: for the coverage of this major event in the Australian political calendar, readers clearly preferred the national broadcaster this year.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>ATNIX is based on tracking all tweets which contain links pointing to the URLs of a large selection of leading Australian news and opinion sites (even if those links have been shortened at some point). Datasets for those sites which cover more than just news and opinion (abc.net.au, sbs.com.au, ninemsn.com.au) are filtered to exclude the non-news sections of those sites (e.g. abc.net.au/tv, catchup.ninemsn.com.au).</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78914/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<h4 class="border">Disclosure</h4><p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research is supported by the ARC Future Fellowship project "Understanding Intermedia Information Flows in the Australian Online Public Sphere". Axel Bruns is collaborating with The Conversation in the ARC Linkage project "Amplifying Public Value: Scholarly Contributions' Impact on Public Debate".
Data on Australian Internet users’ news browsing patterns are provided courtesy of Hitwise, a division of Connexity (<a href="http://connexity.com/au/hitwise/">http://connexity.com/au/hitwise/</a>).</span></em></p>The Schapelle Corby media circus wasn’t reflected in Twitter stats and calls to boycott Fairfax during the staff strike show limited impact on this social media platform as well.Axel Bruns, Professor, Creative Industries, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/784672017-05-31T03:26:27Z2017-05-31T03:26:27ZNo rest over Easter as the barrage of news continues on Twitter<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171401/original/file-20170530-16265-1rns9ya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A burst of news kept us on Twitter.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There seems to be no end in sight to the barrage of breaking, critical news from home and abroad these days. The Australian Twitter News Index (ATNIX) for April 2017 shows that Australians weren’t even able to tear themselves away from their social media newsfeeds during the Easter and ANZAC holidays. </p>
<p>Throughout April news sharing patterns on Twitter largely continued to follow their weekly patterns. The weekend before ANZAC Day even seems unusually active. Perhaps there is simply too much going on today for us to disconnect for long.</p>
<p>ATNIX for April 2017 is dominated, however, by a very substantial spike in sharing Sydney Morning Herald content on 10 April. There were 5,900 tweets sharing news of <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-gvhdmx.html">the arrest of a Russian programmer suspected of hacking the U.S. election</a>. Given the topic it is very likely that a substantial number of those tweets were posted by Twitter users outside Australia. We have seen this pattern with other international stories in the past - articles in Australian news sites that address key international stories occasionally go viral well beyond Australia.</p>
<p>On the same day, Twitter users’ attention was also drawn to news of beloved Australian comedian John Clarke’s sudden death, further increasing the volume of news-sharing tweets that day. An article on Clarke <a href="https://amp.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/renowned-satirist-john-clarke-dead-at-68-20170409-gvhg1r.html">in the SMH</a> was shared some 1,400 times, while <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-10/john-clarke-dies-aged-68/8430174?WT.mc_id=newsmail&WT.tsrc=Newsmail">ABC News’ coverage</a> received 1,200 shares.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171253/original/file-20170529-6421-1sco0p5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171253/original/file-20170529-6421-1sco0p5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171253/original/file-20170529-6421-1sco0p5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171253/original/file-20170529-6421-1sco0p5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171253/original/file-20170529-6421-1sco0p5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171253/original/file-20170529-6421-1sco0p5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171253/original/file-20170529-6421-1sco0p5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171253/original/file-20170529-6421-1sco0p5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australian Twitter News Index, Apr. 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Axel Bruns / QUT Digital Media Research Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Over the course of the entire month, our data show again that a diverse range of unrelated topics sought to draw our attention. </p>
<p>At the Sydney Morning Herald, in addition to its coverage of the Russian hacker’s arrest (7,200 tweets in total for the month) and of John Clarke’s death (1,400 tweets), articles on <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-gvnq0y.html">Malcolm Turnbull’s proposed changes to the citizenship test</a> (1,500 tweets), <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-gvutjx.html">the Australian Federal Police’s illegal access to a journalist’s communications metadata</a> (1,300 tweets), and <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-gvsp1k.html">an opinion piece in defence of Yassmin Abdel-Magied</a> (1,000 tweets) round out the top five.</p>
<p>For ABC News, its coverage of <a href="http://abc.net.au/news/8463800">the Australian March for Science events</a> was most widely shared in April (1,700 tweets), along with pieces on <a href="http://abc.net.au/news/8464252">North Korea’s warning that Australia should not blindly follow the United States</a> (1,500 tweets), John Clarke’s death (1,300 tweets), <a href="http://abc.net.au/news/8454978">an investigation into federal politicians’ property portfolios</a> (1,000 tweets), and <a href="http://abc.net.au/news/8442708">a controversial video by an Islamic group that seemed to condone violence against women</a> (900 tweets).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171254/original/file-20170529-6385-1nmqd0r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171254/original/file-20170529-6385-1nmqd0r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171254/original/file-20170529-6385-1nmqd0r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171254/original/file-20170529-6385-1nmqd0r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171254/original/file-20170529-6385-1nmqd0r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171254/original/file-20170529-6385-1nmqd0r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171254/original/file-20170529-6385-1nmqd0r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/171254/original/file-20170529-6385-1nmqd0r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Total visits to selected Australian news and opinion sites, Apr. 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Data courtesy of Hitwise, a division of Connexity.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Meanwhile data from <a href="http://connexity.com/au/hitwise/">Hitwise</a> shows that the total number of visits to the leading Australian news and opinion sites are only very loosely correlated with news sharing activities on Twitter. There is no sign of the substantial spike in interest in the SMH’s Russian hacker story on 10 April. This suggests that much of the Twitter sharing was by non-Australian readers. We do see some small increases in traffic to the SMH, ABC News, and The Age that day, however, which might be attributed to audience engagement with coverage of John Clarke’s passing.</p>
<p>Overall, there is very little sign of flagging news interest during the Easter long weekend or on ANZAC Day. With so many major developments taking place simultaneously, domestically as well as internationally, perhaps we just can’t afford to switch off from the news any more.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>ATNIX is based on tracking all tweets which contain links pointing to the URLs of a large selection of leading Australian news and opinion sites. Sites that cover more than just news and opinion (abc.net.au, sbs.com.au, ninemsn.com.au) are filtered to exclude the non-news sections. Data on Australian Internet users’ news browsing patterns are provided courtesy of <a href="http://connexity.com/au/hitwise/">Hitwise, a division of Connexity</a>. This research is supported by the ARC Future Fellowship project “Understanding Intermedia Information Flows in the Australian Online Public Sphere”.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78467/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<h4 class="border">Disclosure</h4><p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research is supported by the ARC Future Fellowship project "Understanding Intermedia Information Flows in the Australian Online Public Sphere". Axel Bruns is collaborating with The Conversation in the ARC Linkage project "Amplifying Public Value: Scholarly Contributions' Impact on Public Debate".</span></em></p>A number of big new stories, from home and abroad, meant we didn’t even shut Twitter off over the East long weekend.Axel Bruns, Professor, Creative Industries, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/768642017-05-02T23:24:44Z2017-05-02T23:24:44ZAustralian Twitter is more diverse than you think<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167350/original/file-20170501-8926-99wi8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tired of seeing the same thing on Twitter?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>What are the major drivers of Twitter take-up, in Australia and elsewhere? Do we connect around shared interests, shared location, or pre-existing offline relationships? And when, in the eleven-year history of the platform, did these structures form?</p>
<p>These are the questions that guided a new, long-term study of the Australian national Twittersphere that my colleagues and I have undertaken. </p>
<p>Drawing on <a href="http://trisma.org/">TrISMA</a>, a major multi-institutional facility for social media analytics, we identified some 3.7 million Australian Twitter accounts in existence by early 2016, and captured the 167 million follower/followee connections between them.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167138/original/file-20170428-15091-12mdr8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167138/original/file-20170428-15091-12mdr8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167138/original/file-20170428-15091-12mdr8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167138/original/file-20170428-15091-12mdr8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167138/original/file-20170428-15091-12mdr8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167138/original/file-20170428-15091-12mdr8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167138/original/file-20170428-15091-12mdr8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Clusters in the Australian Twittersphere.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://socialmedia.qut.edu.au/">Axel Bruns / QUT Digital Media Research Centre</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are plenty of assumptions and not a great deal of reliable data about how we use social media. </p>
<p>Twitter, for example, is variously accused of being <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/why-the-unbearable-darkness-of-the-twitsphere-has-made-me-quit-twitter/news-story/b44bfb77c50ec5d6f9ae28698b4b4ca4">a haven for leftist outrage</a> and <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/markdistefano/gday-pepe?utm_term=.bgpmwAbMm#.foDyn82Vy">a cesspool of alt-right fascists</a>. It is seen as <a href="https://theconversation.com/crisis-communication-saving-time-and-lives-in-disasters-through-smarter-social-media-50403">a crucial tool for crisis communication</a> and <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2020378/Facebook-Twitter-creating-vain-generation-self-obsessed-people.html">a place where millennials share photos of their lunch</a>. Surely, these can’t all be true.</p>
<p>Part of the problem here is that we all design our own filter bubbles. What two random users see on Twitter might be entirely different, depending on what accounts they choose to follow, as journalism researcher Paul Bradshaw <a href="https://onlinejournalismblog.com/2016/06/28/dont-blame-facebook-for-your-own-filter-bubble/">has put it</a>. </p>
<p>If all you ever see is food porn, perhaps you need to make some new connections. (Or perhaps that’s what you’re there for). But if we could look beyond our own, personal networks, what would we see?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167139/original/file-20170428-15084-1f1nver.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167139/original/file-20170428-15084-1f1nver.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167139/original/file-20170428-15084-1f1nver.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167139/original/file-20170428-15084-1f1nver.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167139/original/file-20170428-15084-1f1nver.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167139/original/file-20170428-15084-1f1nver.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167139/original/file-20170428-15084-1f1nver.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167139/original/file-20170428-15084-1f1nver.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">New Australian Twitter Accounts per Day.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Axel Bruns / QUT Digital Media Research Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How Twitter grew</h2>
<p>Data from our study show Twitter took off in Australia in 2009, some three years after its launch, and saw a fairly steady daily sign-up rate of 1,000-2,000 new accounts between 2010 and 2014. Growth has slowed since then, which may indicate market saturation. </p>
<p>There are a number of spikes in sign-ups: the series of natural disasters in early 2011 attracted users to the platform who recognise its role in crisis communication, and the political turmoil of 2013 also seems to have driven take-up.</p>
<p>A major spike in 2015 appears to coincide with the devastating Nepal earthquake, but we’ve yet to determine why that event would lead to new Twitter accounts being created in Australia.</p>
<p>To focus in on the core parts of the network, we further filtered this to accounts that have at least 1,000 connections in the global Twittersphere, which left us with the 255,000 best-connected accounts. We visualised their network using <a href="http://gephi.org/">Gephi’s Force Atlas 2 algorithm</a>, which places accounts close to each other if they share many connections, and further apart if they are only poorly connected.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167140/original/file-20170428-15086-pbqq3v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167140/original/file-20170428-15086-pbqq3v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167140/original/file-20170428-15086-pbqq3v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167140/original/file-20170428-15086-pbqq3v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167140/original/file-20170428-15086-pbqq3v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167140/original/file-20170428-15086-pbqq3v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167140/original/file-20170428-15086-pbqq3v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167140/original/file-20170428-15086-pbqq3v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Clusters in the Australian Twittersphere.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Axel Bruns / QUT Digital Media Research Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Shared interests</h2>
<p>The network map shows clear clustering tendencies. Dense regions (in bright yellow), where many accounts are closely connected, are separated from each other by lower-density spaces (in darker colours). We systematically examined these clusters, labelling them based on the overarching themes that emerged from an analysis of the profiles in each cluster. </p>
<p>The result is a kind of birds-eye view of the Twitter landscape, from politics to popular culture and from education to sports.</p>
<p>Accounts connecting around teen culture make up the largest part of this network: 61,000 of our 255,000 accounts. There are 26,000 aspirational accounts (including self-declared social media gurus, self-improvement and life-coaching practitioners, and others who sought to use Twitter for professional betterment). There are also 25,000 accounts around sports (including distinct sub-clusters for cycling and horse racing) and 17,000 accounts of netizens, technologists, and software developers.</p>
<p>Shared interests emerge as the central drivers of our connections on Twitter. For the most part, we follow others because of the topics they cover, not because they’re from the same city or state or because we already know them offline. An equivalent map for Facebook, where connections are much more strongly based on prior acquaintance, would likely look very different.</p>
<p>We further found that these accounts also arrived on Twitter at very different times: both the netizen and the aspirational accounts were created very early in the history of the platform. Fully half of the population in both these clusters had arrived on Twitter by mid-2010. </p>
<p>Sports took a year longer, and may well have been helped along by Twitter Australia itself <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/media/twitter-flies-in-to-meet-leaders/story-e6frg996-1226523789033">as it reached out to key sporting codes</a> to get their teams and players signed up.</p>
<p>The teen culture accounts arrived a great deal later. It took until mid-2012 until half that cluster’s population had joined – a second, separate Twitter adoption event following the first big influx of Australian users in 2009/10. We suspect active encouragement from key bands like One Direction and Five Seconds of Summer to have been a major driver here.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167141/original/file-20170428-11206-1ynfxc1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167141/original/file-20170428-11206-1ynfxc1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167141/original/file-20170428-11206-1ynfxc1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167141/original/file-20170428-11206-1ynfxc1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167141/original/file-20170428-11206-1ynfxc1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167141/original/file-20170428-11206-1ynfxc1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167141/original/file-20170428-11206-1ynfxc1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167141/original/file-20170428-11206-1ynfxc1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">New Australian Accounts per Cluster per Month.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Axel Bruns / QUT Digital Media Research Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In spite of Twitter’s reputation as a space for political debate and agitation, politics attracts only some 13,000 accounts (including 1,500 that form a separate, staunchly right-wing cluster). There’s a great deal more to Twitter than political argument.</p>
<p>But if all you ever see on Twitter is partisan bickering, there may be a reason: per capita, the political accounts are some of the most active in the Australian Twittersphere. Over their lifetimes, they’ve each posted an average of 7.2 tweets per day (and the accounts in the hard right cluster even managed 12.5 per day); in the turbulent first quarter of 2017, those averages are even higher. </p>
<p>Most of the other major cluster communities have managed less than half that work rate. Historically, only the teen culture accounts have been similarly active.</p>
<p>In the end, Twitter is what its users make it. Australian users have made it a diverse and dynamic place, even if they’re less aware of each other than they should be. </p>
<p>As users, we should step beyond our networks more often, to avoid becoming trapped in our own filter bubbles – and this goes doubly for politicians, journalists, and others who now treat their immediate Twitter networks as an instant source of popular opinion.</p>
<p>And as a company, Twitter has much work to do to enable its users to experience the full variety of networked communication and culture that the platform has to offer. Changes to how it recommends new accounts to follow, and how it reveals trending topics outside of our existing networks, could help a great deal in combatting the threat of getting stuck in your own filter bubble.</p>
<p>It doesn’t stop there, of course. We can only speculate what the equivalent networks for Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat would look like, and what they might tell us about how people are using these platforms.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76864/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<h4 class="border">Disclosure</h4><p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research is supported by the ARC Future Fellowship project "Understanding Intermedia Information Flows in the Australian Online Public Sphere", and the ARC LIEF project "TrISMA: Tracking Infrastructure for Social Media Analysis."</span></em></p>Twitter is made up of numerous communities clustered around all manner of topics. If all you see is the same, it’s time to break out of your filter bubble.Axel Bruns, Professor, Creative Industries, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/757762017-04-05T03:18:02Z2017-04-05T03:18:02ZATNIX: Debbie misses Twitter<p>For anyone based in Australia – and especially for those of us here in Queensland – the major domestic news story of March 2017 is no doubt the impact of Tropical Cyclone Debbie on the coastal communities of the central coast Queensland. So it’s surprising that the cyclone fails to impact strongly on the Australian Twitter News Index for the month.</p>
<p>But as we have seen for many similar incidents, slow-moving, long-predicted developments rarely generate substantial engagement from the Twitter community. Twitter is better known for its instant coverage of rapid, unpredicted events – Debbie was well covered by the more conventional live broadcast channels of radio and TV instead.</p>
<p>As a result, the cyclone features only in two of the five most widely shared Australian news stories between 27 and 31 March 2017: <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-28/cyclone-debbie-makes-landfall-in-north-queensland-live-blog/8391312?WT.mc_id=newsmail&WT.tsrc=Newsmail"><em>ABC News</em>’ live blog of developments</a> is shared in some 800 tweets during this time, while its <a href="http://abc.net.au/news/8393164">before-and-after footage from Hamilton Island</a> is shared in more than 700 tweets. But other, equally visible news stories in the Australian Twittersphere concern a new find of <a href="http://abc.net.au/news/8391098">dinosaur footprints in north-west Australia</a>, and <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-gv9cto.html">Paul Keating’s statement that neo-liberalism is dead</a> (both shared in some 700 tweets).</p>
<p>Even Queensland news sources such as <em>Brisbane Times</em> and <em>Courier-Mail</em> are no more prominent on Twitter during this time than they usually are. This may also indicate that Twitter users sought their information directly from sources such as the Bureau of Meteorology or the Queensland emergency services rather than from news outlets.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163996/original/image-20170405-5739-qh25si.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163996/original/image-20170405-5739-qh25si.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163996/original/image-20170405-5739-qh25si.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163996/original/image-20170405-5739-qh25si.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163996/original/image-20170405-5739-qh25si.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163996/original/image-20170405-5739-qh25si.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163996/original/image-20170405-5739-qh25si.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163996/original/image-20170405-5739-qh25si.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australian Twitter News Index, Mar. 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Axel Bruns / QUT Digital Media Research Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Over the course of the entire month, the picture is similarly mixed. Key stories from <em>ABC News</em> included <a href="http://abc.net.au/news/8318880">an article on International Women’s Day</a> that reviewed some of the key remaining areas of inequality between women and men (1,700 tweets); an exclusive on <a href="http://abc.net.au/news/8350704">the complex transnational company structure</a> of Adani’s planned Carmichael coal mine in Queensland (1,300 tweets); and an illustrated piece on <a href="http://abc.net.au/news/8314730">old maps of Australia from the National Library’s Trove collection</a> (900 tweets). </p>
<p>At the <em>Sydney Morning Herald</em>, a feature on <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-guvxyp.html">the United States’ demand for Cambodia to repay its war debt</a> was shared 1,800 times (most likely also by interested international readers); a new <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-gv6lpo.html">federal opinion poll showing Labor with a 10-point lead</a> over the Coalition received 1,200 tweets; and its <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/news-and-views/opinion/when-men-claim-to-be-feminists-just-to-abuse-women-20170314-guxt14.html?utm_campaign=crowdfire&utm_content=crowdfire&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter#153862284-tw#1489894444285">Women’s Day article on abusive men claiming to be feminists</a> was shared in 1,000 tweets.</p>
<p>Finally, <em>news.com.au</em> performed unusually strongly on 9 March, receiving around 50% more tweets than it would on an ordinary day. This is due for the most part to its coverage of <a href="http://www.news.com.au/news-story/0df1d06403d0223ce1cfc286a1e75325">WikiLeaks’ latest release of classified CIA documents</a>, which receives some 1,000 tweets that day. </p>
<p>It’s yet another demonstration of what we have previously observed as the WikiLeaks effect. This is when stories by domestic news outlets receive increased international circulation because they are picked up by WikiLeaks supporters. We’ve seen similar dynamics, too, whenever Australian news sites cover teen bands such as One Direction or Five Seconds of Summer.</p>
<p>Such international effects are necessarily absent from our Hitwise data, which track visits to Australian news sites by domestic users only. Here, <em>news.com.au</em> remains steady (and clearly in the lead) on 9 March, as the WikiLeaks story fails to make an impact. </p>
<p>By contrast, however, we do see some increases in site visits to a number of outlets during the final week of March, as Cyclone Debbie makes landfall in Queensland. <em>news.com.au</em> and especially <em>ABC News</em> (as the national emergency broadcaster) are particularly prominent during this time. </p>
<p>The <em>Courier-Mail</em> and – less strongly so – the <em>Brisbane Times</em> see significantly increased traffic especially on Thursday 30 March, as the remnants of the cyclone pass over Brisbane and cause flash flooding as well as school and business closures.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163997/original/image-20170405-6699-15i002r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163997/original/image-20170405-6699-15i002r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163997/original/image-20170405-6699-15i002r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163997/original/image-20170405-6699-15i002r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163997/original/image-20170405-6699-15i002r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163997/original/image-20170405-6699-15i002r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163997/original/image-20170405-6699-15i002r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163997/original/image-20170405-6699-15i002r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Total visits to selected Australian news and opinion sites, Mar. 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Data courtesy of Hitwise, a division of Connexity</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>Background information on the Australian Twitter News Index:</strong> ATNIX is based on tracking all tweets which contain links pointing to the URLs of a large selection of leading Australian news and opinion sites (even if those links have been shortened at some point). Datasets for those sites which cover more than just news and opinion (abc.net.au, sbs.com.au, ninemsn.com.au) are filtered to exclude the non-news sections of those sites (e.g. abc.net.au/tv, catchup.ninemsn.com.au).</p>
<p>Data on Australian Internet users’ news browsing patterns are provided courtesy of <a href="http://connexity.com/au/hitwise/">Hitwise, a division of Connexity</a>. This research is supported by the ARC Future Fellowship project “Understanding Intermedia Information Flows in the Australian Online Public Sphere”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75776/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<h4 class="border">Disclosure</h4><p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research is supported by the ARC Future Fellowship project "Understanding Intermedia Information Flows in the Australian Online Public Sphere". Axel Bruns is collaborating with The Conversation in the ARC Linkage project "Amplifying Public Value: Scholarly Contributions' Impact on Public Debate".</span></em></p>News sharing on Twitter focuses on a broad range of topics, even as Cyclone Debbie dominated other news sources, as shown by the Australian Twitter News Index for March 2017.Axel Bruns, Professor, Creative Industries, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/742612017-03-08T06:20:47Z2017-03-08T06:20:47ZATNIX: Crisis news floods Twitter<p>It feels as if February 2017 has been a month of permanent crisis. Between the exceptionally controversial first steps of the fledgling Trump administration in the United States, the increasingly fragile relationships between the various factions within the Coalition government, and the renewed hostilities between government and opposition on the resumption of federal parliament, hardly a day has gone by without new developments on any number of controversies. </p>
<p>This is also reflected in the Australian Twitter News Index for the month – which sees plenty of newssharing activity, but without any one major story dominating the headlines.</p>
<p>The most shared <em>ABC News</em> stories for the month, for instance, include reports of 70-year-old <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-25/mem-fox-detained-at-los-angeles-airport-by-us-officials/8303366">Australian children’s book author Mem Fox being detained for hours at Los Angeles airport</a> (shared in 2,400 tweets); of <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-03/fennec-fox-baby-emerges-at-taronga-zoo-in-sydney/8238106">a new fennec fox cub being born at Sydney’s Taronga Zoo</a> (2,000 tweets); of <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-07/australia-post-senior-executive-salaries-revealed/8249728">multi-million dollar executive salaries at Australia Post</a> (1,100 tweets); of <a href="http://abc.net.au/news/8287326">pre-election coal advertising being funded by ‘clean coal’ research funds</a> (930 tweets); and – emerging only on 27 February, and no doubt set to carry over into March – of <a href="http://abc.net.au/news/8307958">the release of Centrelink critics’ personal information to journalists</a> (910 tweets).</p>
<p>Remarkably, there’s very little overlap with the most popular articles at the other most widely shared Australian news site, the <em>Sydney Morning Herald</em>; this further demonstrates the breadth of major news stories vying for our attention this month. Here, most shared links include a report of the federal government’s knowledge that <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-guaxf0.html">renewables had nothing to do with the South Australian blackouts</a> (3,300 tweets); an interactive game to <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-gue6bh.html">‘Spicer-ize’ your name</a>, following the White House Press Secretary’s invention of Australian PM Trumble (3,100 tweets); a story on the <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-gu9xo8.html">homophobic and xenophobic speeches at a far right fundraiser in Sydney</a> (2,100 tweets); an interactive special report on <a href="http://smh.com.au/interactive/2017/the-dominos-effect/">shoddy business practices at pizza chain Domino’s</a> (1,000 tweets); and a story about <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-guhboc.html">Coalition MP Michael Sukkar’s ill-judged comments about housing affordability</a> (910 tweets).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159930/original/image-20170308-24182-6sh1ma.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159930/original/image-20170308-24182-6sh1ma.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159930/original/image-20170308-24182-6sh1ma.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159930/original/image-20170308-24182-6sh1ma.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159930/original/image-20170308-24182-6sh1ma.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159930/original/image-20170308-24182-6sh1ma.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159930/original/image-20170308-24182-6sh1ma.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159930/original/image-20170308-24182-6sh1ma.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australian Twitter News Index, Feb. 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Axel Bruns / QUT Digital Media Research Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A handful of other news sites in Australia also captured public attention, if only for much briefer periods. Somewhat divergent from its usual profile, <em>news.com.au</em> tweets spike on 21 February with an article speculating on <a href="http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/space/nasa-announces-press-conference-over-new-exoplanet-findings/news-story/2ca20a44179ad01119a4ec750edf5ce6">an impending NASA announcement</a> (2,800 tweets). This would later turn out to be the discovery of seven new exoplanets in our immediate galactic neighbourhood, but the shared article was published before these details were released, and its success may be related to its mention of related debates on <em>Reddit</em>. An article from <em>SBS News</em> on the <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/02/21/frances-le-pen-refuses-wear-headscarf-meeting-lebanons-grand-mufti">cancelled meeting between French far right leader Marine Le Pen and the Grand Mufti of Lebanon</a> is shared in 2,400 tweets, most likely due to on-sharing in France and Lebanon. Finally, <a href="http://afr.com/x/-gukkca">Laura Tingle’s strongly worded criticism of Tony Abbott’s latest forays into the federal leadership debate</a> results in 1,600 tweets sharing her opinion piece in the <em>Australian Financial Review</em>.</p>
<p>As a representation of the fractured and restive environment we live in, and of the multiple crises and controversies that fill our news feeds, these stories capture the contemporary world fairly well – even if even they still leave out many other sources of uncertainty, from the Syrian conflict to the debate over budget policy.</p>
<p>Little wonder, then, that for most of the Australian news and opinion sites we cover here February 2017 has seen a further increase in total visits compared to the same period last year; <em>news.com.au</em>, <em>Sydney Morning Herald</em>, and <em>ABC News</em> alone received nearly 132 million visits from Australian users in the past month. In spite of the considerable number of breaking news stories emerging during that time, though, day-to-day patterns remained largely static, as our Hitwise data show.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159931/original/image-20170308-24211-149uorx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159931/original/image-20170308-24211-149uorx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159931/original/image-20170308-24211-149uorx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159931/original/image-20170308-24211-149uorx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159931/original/image-20170308-24211-149uorx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159931/original/image-20170308-24211-149uorx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159931/original/image-20170308-24211-149uorx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159931/original/image-20170308-24211-149uorx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Total visits to selected Australian news and opinion sites, Feb. 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Data courtesy of Hitwise, a division of Connexity.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Only <em>Nine News</em> appears to significantly diverge from the status quo, on 21 February. This spike in visits does not correspond to a similar spike in tweets sharing its news content; however, it is likely that it is related to <a href="http://www.9news.com.au/national/2017/02/21/09/12/reports-air-ambulance-crashed-at-dfo-near-essendon-airport">the crash of a plane from Melbourne’s Essendon airport into the nearly DFO shopping centre</a>, which accounts for a considerable number of the <em>Nine News</em> articles being shared on Twitter that day.</p>
<p><strong>Standard background information:</strong> ATNIX is based on tracking all tweets which contain links pointing to the URLs of a large selection of leading Australian news and opinion sites (even if those links have been shortened at some point). Datasets for those sites which cover more than just news and opinion (abc.net.au, sbs.com.au, ninemsn.com.au) are filtered to exclude the non-news sections of those sites (e.g. abc.net.au/tv, catchup.ninemsn.com.au). Data on Australian Internet users’ news browsing patterns are provided courtesy of <a href="http://connexity.com/au/hitwise/">Hitwise, a division of Connexity</a>. This research is supported by the ARC Future Fellowship project “Understanding Intermedia Information Flows in the Australian Online Public Sphere”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74261/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<h4 class="border">Disclosure</h4><p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research is supported by the ARC Future Fellowship project "Understanding Intermedia Information Flows in the Australian Online Public Sphere". Axel Bruns is collaborating with The Conversation in the ARC Linkage project "Amplifying Public Value: Scholarly Contributions' Impact on Public Debate".</span></em></p>The Australian Twitter News Index for February 2017 reflects the current climate of permanent crisis, at home and abroad.Axel Bruns, Professor, Creative Industries, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/729592017-02-13T23:32:41Z2017-02-13T23:32:41ZATNIX: Australian Twitter News Index, January 2017<p>The Australian Twitter News Index has been on hold for the past few months as we’ve adjusted our data gathering approach to address some changes to Twitter’s data gathering frameworks, and unfortunately this period has also included the U.S. election and its immediate aftermath. But we’re back in time to the inauguration of President Trump, and the first stirrings of the Australian parliamentary year.</p>
<p>It is not Trump’s inauguration on 20 January that is causing a pronounced increase in the <em>Age</em> and <em>Herald Sun</em> links being shared on that day, however, but a tragic event much closer to home: links to both Melburnian news sites are shared in a significant number of tweets as they cover <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/live-pedestrians-hit-gunshots-heard-in-melbourne-cbd-20170120-gtvf3x">the killing of several pedestrians by a deranged driver in Bourke Street in the city’s CBD</a>. Twitter users posted more than 1,800 tweets sharing <em>The Age</em> articles about this incident in the immediate aftermath.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156682/original/image-20170213-25969-1oi7xye.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156682/original/image-20170213-25969-1oi7xye.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156682/original/image-20170213-25969-1oi7xye.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156682/original/image-20170213-25969-1oi7xye.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156682/original/image-20170213-25969-1oi7xye.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156682/original/image-20170213-25969-1oi7xye.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156682/original/image-20170213-25969-1oi7xye.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156682/original/image-20170213-25969-1oi7xye.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australian Twitter News Index, Jan. 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Axel Bruns / QUT Digital Media Research Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That the Trump inauguration did not generate a substantial number of link-sharing tweets by comparison is relatively unsurprising – a widely televised event generally produces few tweets sharing links to its coverage, and the fact that it took place in the early hours of the Australian morning and would have been covered more exhaustively by US than Australian media also worked against it. </p>
<p>This is not to say that Australians were generally disinterested in the Trump Presidency and its first steps in office, even before Trump’s tetchy phone call with Malcolm Turnbull; subsequent days show a substantial growth in the number of Trump-related stories from Australian media sources being shared on Twitter. </p>
<p>A somewhat surprising beneficiary of these links is <em>SBS News</em>, which records unusually strong attention in the period of 25 to 27 January: its article on <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/01/25/netherlands-counters-trump-international-abortion-fund">the Netherlands’ funding support for aid organisations promoting birth control</a>, in response to the Trump administration’s ban on such funding, is shared in more than 6,800 tweets during these three days; another article on <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/01/24/translators-are-struggling-interpret-donald-trump">official translators’ troubles with interpreting Trump’s statements</a> receives 2,200 shares. It is quite likely, given these extraordinary numbers, that those articles would have been shared well beyond the Australian Twittersphere itself.</p>
<p>More generally, six of the top ten most widely shared <em>ABC News</em> stories since inauguration day were related to Trump and his policies; as were five of the <em>Sydney Morning Herald</em>’s and five from <em>news.com.au</em>. The next weeks and months will show whether Twitter users – and news audiences more generally – will continue to pay such attention to the new administration, or whether a kind of ‘Trump fatigue’ will mean that their attention gradually diverts elsewhere. (Note, though, that the Trump-Turnbull phone call took place on 29 January and that rumours about its belligerent tone appeared only a few days later – so we should expect that controversy to feature in next month’s ATNIX data.)</p>
<p>In terms of total visits to Australian news and opinion Websites, too, January 2017 has been a particularly active month. Ordinarily, the holiday month of January is not exactly a time when Australians spend exceptionally much time visiting news sites; in both January 2015 and January 2016, for instance, the combined total for <em>news.com.au</em>, the <em>Sydney Morning Herald</em>, and <em>ABC News</em> was stable at around 114 million site visits. 2017 exceeded that measure by a considerable margin: together, the three sites received just over 139 million site visits. This undoubtedly reflects the increased attention to the news in a destabilising geopolitical environment, as well as the impact of the Bourke Street tragedy.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156681/original/image-20170213-25987-1o1t6rv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156681/original/image-20170213-25987-1o1t6rv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156681/original/image-20170213-25987-1o1t6rv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156681/original/image-20170213-25987-1o1t6rv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156681/original/image-20170213-25987-1o1t6rv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156681/original/image-20170213-25987-1o1t6rv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156681/original/image-20170213-25987-1o1t6rv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156681/original/image-20170213-25987-1o1t6rv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Total visits to selected Australian news and opinion sites, Jan. 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Data courtesy of Hitwise, a division of Connexity.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Unsurprisingly, the major spike in visits to Australian news sites occurs on 20 January, the day of the Bourke Street incident. While a number of sites receive increased user attention on that day, the numbers for <em>The Age</em> and <em>Nine News</em> are particularly elevated: <em>The Age</em> all but doubles its usual number of Friday visits, and <em>Nine News</em> records a similar boost. <em>ABC News</em>, <em>news.com.au</em>, the <em>Herald Sun</em>, and <em>Yahoo! News</em> also gain additional visitors, though to a lesser extent. Here, too, the <em>Sydney Morning Herald</em> fails to match the influx recorded by its Fairfax stablemate, confirming our observations from the Twitter data that audiences naturally gravitate to the leading news source in Melbourne, close to the scene of the tragedy.</p>
<p>With the unfolding phone call controversy, widespread protests against the Trump administration’s ban on travellers from several majority-Muslim countries, and the commencement of the Australian parliamentary year, we should expect elevated levels of interest in the news to persist for some time to come. If January was unusual for its comparative lack of a holiday lull, the coming months will no doubt turn out to be even busier.</p>
<p><strong>Standard background information:</strong> ATNIX is based on tracking all tweets which contain links pointing to the URLs of a large selection of leading Australian news and opinion sites (even if those links have been shortened at some point). Datasets for those sites which cover more than just news and opinion (abc.net.au, sbs.com.au, ninemsn.com.au) are filtered to exclude the non-news sections of those sites (e.g. abc.net.au/tv, catchup.ninemsn.com.au). Data on Australian Internet users’ news browsing patterns are provided courtesy of <a href="http://connexity.com/au/hitwise/">Hitwise, a division of Connexity</a>. This research is supported by the ARC Future Fellowship project “Understanding Intermedia Information Flows in the Australian Online Public Sphere”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72959/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<h4 class="border">Disclosure</h4><p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research is supported by the ARC Future Fellowship project "Understanding Intermedia Information Flows in the Australian Online Public Sphere". Axel Bruns is collaborating with The Conversation in the ARC Linkage project "Amplifying Public Value: Scholarly Contributions' Impact on Public Debate".</span></em></p>ATNIX for January 2017 shows unusual levels of news engagement as Australia reacts to the Bourke St tragedy and comes to terms with the Trump Presidency.Axel Bruns, Professor, Creative Industries, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/675602016-10-28T04:30:45Z2016-10-28T04:30:45ZATNIX: Australian Twitter News Index, September 2016<p>As the world turns its attention to the slow-motion car crash that is this year’s U.S. presidential election, September in Australia was a comparatively ordinary, intermediate month for news. A number of continuing scandals and controversies – including the donations affair engulfing Labor Senator Sam Dastyari, the Country Fire Authority pay dispute in Victoria, and the growing opposition to a costly nationwide referendum on same-sex marriage – played out through the month, but none of these managed to fully capture the nation’s attention; distractions including the NRL and AFL finals series and the spring school holidays saw to this.</p>
<p>The Australian Twitter News Index for September 2016 therefore points to a gradual decline in the sharing of links to Australian news sites on Twitter, especially as the school holidays commenced in the majority of states and territories on 17 or 24 September; far from the caricatures sometimes drawn by self-interested political operatives, Australian Twitter users have families, too.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142862/original/image-20161024-26489-qipbwq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142862/original/image-20161024-26489-qipbwq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142862/original/image-20161024-26489-qipbwq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142862/original/image-20161024-26489-qipbwq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142862/original/image-20161024-26489-qipbwq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142862/original/image-20161024-26489-qipbwq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142862/original/image-20161024-26489-qipbwq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142862/original/image-20161024-26489-qipbwq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australian Twitter News Index, Aug. 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Axel Bruns / QUT Digital Media Research Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The stories from the leading Australian news sites that were most widely shared on Twitter during the past month document the diversity of topics currently exercising the Australian social media community. A <em>Sydney Morning Herald</em> piece <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/liberal-party-members-behind-samesex-marriage-misinformation-campaign-20160923-grmvd6.html">accusing Liberal Party members of orchestrating a dishonest campaign opposing same-sex marriage</a> appeared in some 1,400 tweets; the referendum was also addressed in an <em>SMH</em> article that covered <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/eddie-the-boy-with-two-mums-who-stole-question-time-is-not-happy-with-malcolm-turnbull-20160913-grfgvi.html">the handwritten message to Malcolm Turnbull</a> delivered by a same-sex couple’s 13-year-old son, which received 1,100 tweets.</p>
<p>Elsewhere, the Chinese donations scandal centring on Labor Senator Sam Dastyari generated a number of claims and counter-claims about Chinese influence on Australian politics, and led a May 2016 <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-goxl8b.html">exposé on political donations to Australian politicians from Chinese interests</a> from the <em>Sydney Morning Herald</em> to re-emerge as the second most widely shared article in September (1,200 tweets). It was accompanied by widely shared <em>SMH</em> stories on the Chinese links of <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-grmtuw.html">Liberal MP Stuart Roberts</a> (1,200 tweets) and <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-gqzauy.html">Foreign Minister Julie Bishop</a> (1,200 tweets), which in combination seemed to deflect the issue away from Dastyari alone and to raise broader questions about the integrity of the Australian political process.</p>
<p>Such broader issues were also addressed in other leading stories during September: the <em>SMH</em> also questioned Attorney-General George Brandis’s <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-grch72.html">appointment of a major Liberal Party donor to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal</a> just before the commencement of the pre-election caretaker period (1,100 tweets), while <em>ABC News</em>’ interactive data journalism piece on <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-02/federal-politicians-claimed-$55m-in-expenses-in-2015-documents/7809062">the expenses claimed by federal politicians of all stripes</a> was circulated on Twitter in more than 1,000 tweets during September.</p>
<p>Rounding out the top ten <em>SMH</em> and <em>ABC News</em> articles for the month are articles on <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-gre6nr.html">the government’s embarrassing procedural mistakes in the Senate</a> (<em>SMH</em>, 1,200 tweets), as well as the only two pieces not dealing with party politics: <a href="http://abc.net.au/news/7858484">the plan to register a roadworthy solar car in Queensland</a> (<em>ABC News</em>, 1,100 shares), and the commencement of construction of <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-08/aust-solar-power-production-triple-with-12-new-plants-beingbuilt/7826302">twelve new solar power plants across Australia</a> (<em>ABC News</em>, 1,000 shares).</p>
<p>The comparatively modest numbers of tweets achieved by each of these leading articles also paints the picture of a month in which user attention was broadly distributed, however: none of these issues, and the many other topics also being addressed in news articles from these and other Australian sources, managed to rise to particular prominence.</p>
<p>The patterns in domestic user visits to Australian news sites captured in our Hitwise data also bear this out. Across the Australian news and opinion sites we track here, activity from week to week remains almost uniform, with very few aberrations; indeed, repeating a pattern we have found in previous years, even the commencement of the school holidays does not appear to affect the number of visits to these sites – it seems that Australian users still follow the news online during the holidays, but are less interested in sharing on news articles during this time.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142861/original/image-20161024-26481-13xwcby.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142861/original/image-20161024-26481-13xwcby.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142861/original/image-20161024-26481-13xwcby.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142861/original/image-20161024-26481-13xwcby.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142861/original/image-20161024-26481-13xwcby.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142861/original/image-20161024-26481-13xwcby.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142861/original/image-20161024-26481-13xwcby.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142861/original/image-20161024-26481-13xwcby.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Total visits to selected Australian news and opinion sites, Aug. 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Data courtesy of Hitwise, a division of Connexity.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The one major spike in activity – especially for <em>Nine News</em> and <em>ABC News</em>, and to a much lesser extent also for <em>Adelaide Now</em> – occurs towards the end of the month, on 28 September. As the Adelaide connection indicates, this is almost certainly tied to the major power outages occurring in South Australia on this date, as the result of a number of major storms bringing down crucial powerlines. </p>
<p>Occurring so late in the month, the subsequent political debate over the role of South Australia’s dependence on renewable energy in this outage is unlikely to have substantially affected the statistics on article sharing on Twitter that we track in ATNIX – we will see in the October instalment whether this emerging debate generated enough news sharing activity to appear in that month’s list of leading articles.</p>
<p><strong>Standard background information:</strong> ATNIX is based on tracking all tweets which contain links pointing to the URLs of a large selection of leading Australian news and opinion sites (even if those links have been shortened at some point). Datasets for those sites which cover more than just news and opinion (abc.net.au, sbs.com.au, ninemsn.com.au) are filtered to exclude the non-news sections of those sites (e.g. abc.net.au/tv, catchup.ninemsn.com.au). Data on Australian Internet users’ news browsing patterns are provided courtesy of Hitwise, a division of Connexity. This research is supported by the ARC Future Fellowship project “Understanding Intermedia Information Flows in the Australian Online Public Sphere”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67560/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<h4 class="border">Disclosure</h4><p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research is supported by the ARC Future Fellowship project “Understanding Intermedia Information Flows in the Australian Online Public Sphere”. Axel Bruns is collaborating with The Conversation in the ARC Linkage project "Amplifying Public Value: Scholarly Contributions’ Impact on Public Debate".</span></em></p>In a slow month for Australian news, the squabbles of federal politics provide the most widely shared stories on Twitter.Axel Bruns, Professor, Creative Industries, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/654742016-09-15T04:54:34Z2016-09-15T04:54:34ZATNIX: Australian Twitter News Index, August 2016<p>As the 2016 federal election campaign recedes into memory, online engagement with the news in Australia has returned to what passes for normality these days. This is also reflected in the news sharing activities we are able to observe in the Australian Twitter News Index for August: the long-term patterns of how Twitter users’ attention is distributed across the leading news sites in the country continue to hold. </p>
<p>As this month’s data show, <em>ABC News</em> remains by far the most widely shared Australian news site, followed by the <em>Sydney Morning Herald</em> and <em>The Conversation</em>, whose numbers are as always substantially inflated by its large and growing international userbase. Further down the order, <em>news.com.au</em> has moved ahead of <em>The Age</em> again, reflecting perhaps the shift of focus away from sharing political news during the election campaign – an area that might be seen as the natural domain of <em>The Age</em>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137878/original/image-20160915-30614-1r60aek.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137878/original/image-20160915-30614-1r60aek.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137878/original/image-20160915-30614-1r60aek.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137878/original/image-20160915-30614-1r60aek.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137878/original/image-20160915-30614-1r60aek.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137878/original/image-20160915-30614-1r60aek.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137878/original/image-20160915-30614-1r60aek.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137878/original/image-20160915-30614-1r60aek.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australian Twitter News Index, Aug. 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Axel Bruns / QUT Digital Media Research Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Following the predictably strong focus on narrowly political stories amongst the most shared news articles during the election and its immediate aftermath, this month’s top stories range across a very wide set of themes; perhaps this documents the nation’s mood after the longest election campaign in recent memory.</p>
<p>Emblematic for this is the most widely shared <em>ABC News</em> article, about <a href="http://abc.net.au/news/7747824">a 1.9 kg goldfish found in WA’s Vasse River</a> (shared some 3,700 times); other key ABC News stories include <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-20/solar-energy-and-panels-explained/7763474">a primer on solar cell technology</a> (1,800 shares); coverage of <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-18/children-continue-to-pay-price-of-syria-conflict/7761322">a horrendous new aerial bombardment of Aleppo</a> (1,500 shares); <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-06/indigenous-dads-counter-bill-leak-cartoon-with-stories/7697668">the #IndigenousDads hashtag</a> in response to a Bill Leak cartoon that was widely perceived as racist (1,100 shares); and a feature report on <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-07/carteret-climate-refugees-new-home/7693950">climate change refugees in Bougainville</a> (1,100 shares).</p>
<p>The <em>Sydney Morning Herald</em>’s most shared stories, by contrast, remain considerably more strongly focussed on post-election politics: key articles here address new One Nation senator <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/one-nation-senatorelect-malcolm-roberts-wrote-bizarre-sovereign-citizen-letter-to-julia-gillard-20160804-gqlesa">Malcolm Roberts’s bizarre 2011 letter to then-PM Julia Gillard</a> (1,300 shares); a <em>post mortem</em> on <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/code-red-how-the-bureau-of-statistics-bungled-the-2016-census-20160811-gqqpxf">the bungling of the 2016 Census</a> (1,200 shares); the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/wake-up-aussies-farright-pauline-hanson-supporters-dressed-as-muslims-storm-church-20160814-gqsclh">disruption of services at the Gosford Anglican Church by far-right extremists</a> (1,100 shares); commentary on <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/comment/cutting-the-newstart-allowance-by-4-a-week-is-the-wrong-way-to-balance-the-budget-scott-morrison-20160825-gr0oiw">Treasurer Scott Morrison’s plans to cut the Newstart allowance</a> (1,100 shares); and an exclusive on <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/foreign-minister-julie-bishops-links-to-chinese-political-donors-20160823-gqzauy">Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s purported links to Chinese political donors</a> (1,100 shares).</p>
<p>And while these two sites contribute a significant majority of the most shared articles for August, a handful of other publications also received a significant boost from tweeting readers: <a href="http://www.news.com.au/world/europe/julian-assange-files-appeal-on-un-ruling/news-story/2a1d3427775a27dbc8c6029e475eedad">a <em>news.com.au</em> piece on Julian Assange’s latest appeal</a> in his long-running battle with Swedish authorities was shared 2,800 times, and shows that the <em>WikiLeaks</em> effect that we’ve observed for Assange-related stories in the past is alive and well; a <em>Brisbane Times</em> article about <a href="http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/act-news/act-parliament-passes-religious-vilification-laws-20160804-gqlagu.html">new religious vilification laws in the ACT</a> received 1,900 shares; and a <em>Herald Sun</em> report about <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/technology/july-2016-hottest-month-on-record-according-to-nasa/news-story/7e4face63cbfadb34b9c48e06debf81e?utm_content=SocialFlow&utm_campaign=EditorialSF&utm_source=HeraldSun&utm_medium=Twitter">NASA’s assessment of July 2016 as the hottest month on record</a> clocked up 1,800 shares.</p>
<p>If our Twitter data indicate a shift in engagement and endorsement patterns after the conclusion of the election campaign, our Hitwise data on total visits to Australian news sites show a similar return to longer-term averages. Gone, for the most part, are the big increases in visitor numbers that we observed in July; the total of some 356 million total visits to the Australian news sites we track is still above the average of 329 million visits per month between May 2015 and May 2016, but well down on the all-time peak of 385 million in July.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137879/original/image-20160915-30608-gyca05.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137879/original/image-20160915-30608-gyca05.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137879/original/image-20160915-30608-gyca05.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137879/original/image-20160915-30608-gyca05.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137879/original/image-20160915-30608-gyca05.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137879/original/image-20160915-30608-gyca05.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137879/original/image-20160915-30608-gyca05.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137879/original/image-20160915-30608-gyca05.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Total visits to selected Australian news and opinion sites, Aug. 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Data courtesy of Hitwise, a division of Connexity.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is not unsurprising that compared to July, some of the leading sources of political coverage in Australia are losing a particularly significant number of visits – this includes especially <em>ABC News</em>, which experienced a particularly strong boost in numbers around election day, but also the <em>Sydney Morning Herald</em>, <em>The Age</em>, <em>The Guardian</em> and <em>The Australian</em> (but also, somewhat less expected, <em>Nine News</em>). Other sites do better at retaining their audiences; <em>news.com.au</em>, in particular, is barely unchanged at nearly 69.5 million visits in August (down from 69.9 million in July).</p>
<p>There is a longer story to be told here in the long-term development of visit numbers to these sites: the Australian edition of the UK’s <em>Daily Mail</em>, for instance, has been holding steady at around 24 million visits per month since February, which is well down compared to a much stronger performance through 2015 (when it peaked at well over 36 million visits). Other sites, including <em>ABC News</em> and <em>The Guardian</em>, are experiencing relatively steady growth (election-related fluctuation notwithstanding), while <em>Buzzfeed Australia</em>’s number of visits per month has declined notably over the past twelve months.</p>
<p>But the full story of these developments will have to wait for another time – these patterns will become clearer only once election effects wash out of the system.</p>
<p><strong>Standard background information:</strong> ATNIX is based on tracking all tweets which contain links pointing to the URLs of a large selection of leading Australian news and opinion sites (even if those links have been shortened at some point). Datasets for those sites which cover more than just news and opinion (abc.net.au, sbs.com.au, ninemsn.com.au) are filtered to exclude the non-news sections of those sites (e.g. abc.net.au/tv, catchup.ninemsn.com.au). Data on Australian Internet users’ news browsing patterns are provided courtesy of <a href="http://connexity.com/au/hitwise/">Hitwise, a division of Connexity</a>. This research is supported by the ARC Future Fellowship project “Understanding Intermedia Information Flows in the Australian Online Public Sphere”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65474/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<h4 class="border">Disclosure</h4><p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research is supported by the ARC Future Fellowship project “Understanding Intermedia Information Flows in the Australian Online Public Sphere”. Axel Bruns is collaborating with The Conversation in the ARC Linkage project "Amplifying Public Value: Scholarly Contributions’ Impact on Public Debate".</span></em></p>As day-to-day politics returns, Australian Internet users’ interest in the news declines from its election-driven heights.Axel Bruns, Professor, Creative Industries, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/641232016-08-18T04:53:41Z2016-08-18T04:53:41ZATNIX: Australian Twitter News Index, June-July 2016<p>This instalment of the Australian Twitter News Index covers the business end of the Australian federal election campaign, which culminated in election day on 2 July 2016 and was followed by a brief period of uncertainty over whether the Coalition government had in fact held on to enough seats in the House of Representatives to claim victory. As it turns out, however, this is not the most prominent topic to drive the sharing of news on Twitter over this two-month period.</p>
<p>To be sure, the election was a key theme during June and into July. Six of the ten most widely shared news articles from <em>ABC News</em> and the <em>Sydney Morning Herald</em> – the new Australian news outlets most widely shared on Twitter – related to the election and its aftermath. But there is no substantially heightened news sharing activity to be seen on Twitter ahead of the election; this is due most likely to the fact that there was blanket coverage of the campaign in the Australian media already, and that Twitter users therefore felt a need to share on election news only whenever something particularly unexpected happened.</p>
<p>Indeed, the single most widely shared URL during these two months (in over 3,700 tweets) was the generic short URL <a href="http://ab.co/electionlive">http://ab.co/electionlive</a>, for <em>ABC News</em>’ daily liveblog covering the campaign – a significant endorsement for this still relatively novel journalistic format, and one that is not unexpected coming from the Australian Twittersphere, given the similarities in format between its frequently updated news feed and Twitter itself.</p>
<p>Other widely shared election stories include the <em>Sydney Morning Herald</em>’s exposé of <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/government-staffers-provided-free-training-for-liberal-software-donor-20160612-gphdz9">links between the Liberal Party and software company Parakeelia</a> (2,400 tweets), an <em>ABC News</em> fact check confirming <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-21/fact-check-australias-internet-speed-rank/7509352">the poor ranking of Australian Internet speeds in international comparisons</a> (2,200 tweets), <em>ABC News</em>’ somewhat tongue-in-cheek status page on <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-02/has-antony-green-called-the-election-yet/7560994">whether election analyst Antony Green had called the election yet</a> (2,100 tweets), a second <em>SMH</em> story on <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/election-2016-mps-directing-taxpayer-funds-towards-liberal-partylinked-company-and-donor-20160608-gpe87q">the Parakeelia revelations</a> (1,900 tweets), and an <em>ABC News</em> article covering <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-17/treasury-data-undermines-government's-negative-gearing-claims/7521930">the Coalition’s stance on negative gearing</a> (1,900 tweets).</p>
<p>These articles are interspersed, however, with other, non-election-related events. An <em>SMH</em> story on <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/world/us-election/wikileaks-trove-plunges-democrats-into-crisis-on-eve-of-convetion-20160723-gqcamq"><em>WikiLeaks</em>’ release of hacked U.S. Democrats emails</a> later in July was shared some 3,600 times, a (post-election) <em>ABC News</em> article on <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-10/unprecedented-10000-hectares-of-mangroves-die/7552968">a substantial mangrove die-back in northern Australia</a> attracted 2,300 shares, and a 22 June piece on <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-22/live-export-vet-removed-after-revealing-conditions-on-ships/7501428">conditions on live animal export ships</a> (based on a story aired on the ABC’s <em>7.30</em> programme) was shared 1,900 times.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134592/original/image-20160818-12281-1cvpekz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134592/original/image-20160818-12281-1cvpekz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134592/original/image-20160818-12281-1cvpekz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134592/original/image-20160818-12281-1cvpekz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134592/original/image-20160818-12281-1cvpekz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134592/original/image-20160818-12281-1cvpekz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134592/original/image-20160818-12281-1cvpekz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134592/original/image-20160818-12281-1cvpekz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australian Twitter News Index, June-July 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Axel Bruns / QUT Digital Media Research Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While these stories are prominent throughout the two months, however, the most significant short-term spike in news sharing activity occurs from 25 to 27 July; during this time, <em>ABC News</em> receives some 4,000 to 5,000 more shares per day than its ordinary performance would predict.</p>
<p>This increase in sharing activity is centred to a large extent around the graphic footage of the abuse of inmates in the Northern Territory’s Don Dale juvenile detention centre, broadcast first <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2016/07/25/4504895.htm">on the ABC’s <em>Four Corners</em> programme</a>. The leading <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-25/four-corners-evidence-of-kids-tear-gas-in-don-dale-prison/7656128"><em>ABC News</em> article covering this story</a> alone was shared on Twitter some 2,300 times – but as political, civic, and indigenous leaders reacted to these revelations, and as a Royal Commission to investigate the scandal was set up by the federal government, many more news articles emerged.</p>
<p>On the <em>ABC News</em> site, the nearly two dozen news items related to the Don Dale scandal were shared more than 10,000 times in total. This documents Twitter’s role especially as a medium for tracking the development of a fast-moving, breaking news story.</p>
<p>The past two months have also seen significant increases in the overall online news consumption of the Australian public, no doubt driven in good part by the federal election and other major events. Hitwise data reveal that the number of total visits to the Websites that we track in ATNIX rose from an average, over the preceding twelve months, of 329 million per month to almost 345 million in June and 386 million in July; this is a new record for the 2012-16 period.</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, our Hitwise data for the past two months are dominated by considerable spikes in site visits on and after election day. These are concentrated on a handful of key sites, which indicates what are the most authoritative sources that Australian Internet users turn to at this critical moment.</p>
<p>In fact, a two-tier hierarchy emerges here: on election day itself, users overwhelmingly turn to <em>ABC News</em>, which jumps from around one million visitors on an ordinary day to nearly three million on 2 July, briefly becoming Australia’s most visited news site. A similar election-day boost, if from a considerably lower base, is recorded by <em>The Australian</em>, which rises from around 300,000 to 847,000 on election day.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134593/original/image-20160818-12312-6mbubc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134593/original/image-20160818-12312-6mbubc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134593/original/image-20160818-12312-6mbubc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134593/original/image-20160818-12312-6mbubc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134593/original/image-20160818-12312-6mbubc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134593/original/image-20160818-12312-6mbubc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134593/original/image-20160818-12312-6mbubc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134593/original/image-20160818-12312-6mbubc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Total visits to selected Australian news and opinion sites, May 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Data courtesy of Hitwise, a division of Connexity.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But if these two sites are central to election-day coverage, several other sources join in on the following Sunday. <em>ABC News</em> remains the most visited Australian news site on 3 July, but the post-election coverage and analysis on <em>news.com.au</em>, the <em>Sydney Morning Herald</em>, and <em>Nine News</em> also attract substantial audiences beyond their long-term averages.</p>
<p>Several of these high-performing sites continue to enjoy above-average readerships throughout the following week as the final seat results are being declared and the election result gradually becomes clearer; by contrast, <em>The Australian</em> is unable to maintain its strong election-day performance and returns to standard levels more quickly.</p>
<p>Somewhat more surprisingly, given the substantial response in both mainstream and social media, the <em>Four Corners</em> revelations about the treatment of inmates in juvenile detention in the Northern Territory do not appear to affect total visits to Australian news sites in a particularly notable fashion.</p>
<p>This may point to the qualitative differences between this event and the federal election. Although the matters raised by <em>Four Corners</em> are clearly scandalous, as documented by the rapid establishment of a royal commission by the federal government, it appears that Australian Web users informed themselves about the issue as part of their day-to-day news diet, rather than seeking out additional information online.</p>
<p>Indeed, the <em>Four Corners</em> report and subsequent political and media response may themselves be responsible for this pattern: given the in-depth coverage in broadcast and print news, additional online news about the topic was perhaps not required by Australians who pay attention to the news media.</p>
<p>What emerges from these divergent patterns over the past two months is a picture of how mainstream news and social media news sharing complement one another: while Australian users rely on mainstream news sites for day-to-day coverage, and gradually increase their news consumption in the lead-up to foreseeable events such as the federal election, social media serve to rapidly disseminate information about breaking news events and quickly transforming stories such as the Don Dale scandal.</p>
<p><strong>Standard background information:</strong> ATNIX is based on tracking all tweets which contain links pointing to the URLs of a large selection of leading Australian news and opinion sites (even if those links have been shortened at some point). Datasets for those sites which cover more than just news and opinion (abc.net.au, sbs.com.au, ninemsn.com.au) are filtered to exclude the non-news sections of those sites (e.g. abc.net.au/tv, catchup.ninemsn.com.au). Data on Australian Internet users’ news browsing patterns are provided courtesy of <a href="http://www.experian.com.au/hitwise/">Hitwise, a division of Connexity</a>. This research is supported by the ARC Future Fellowship project “Understanding Intermedia Information Flows in the Australian Online Public Sphere”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64123/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<h4 class="border">Disclosure</h4><p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research is supported by the ARC Future Fellowship project “Understanding Intermedia Information Flows in the Australian Online Public Sphere”. Axel Bruns is collaborating with The Conversation in the ARC Linkage project "Amplifying Public Value: Scholarly Contributions’ Impact on Public Debate".</span></em></p>Two media events dominate the Australian Twitter News Index for June/July: the election drives visitors to Australian news sites, but the Don Dale scandal boosts social media sharing for the ABC.Axel Bruns, Professor, Creative Industries, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/612232016-06-17T08:50:11Z2016-06-17T08:50:11ZATNIX: Australian Twitter News Index, May 2016<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127086/original/image-20160617-11120-1pdx570.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>We’re now well into the federal election season, and of course this is reflected in the Twitter-based news sharing activities captured in the Australian Twitter News Index as well. But – because as in previous elections the general public tends to fully connect with the campaign only in the final weeks before election day – that’s not the only topic emerging from the past month’s data, as we will see.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, our Twitter data for the month are also affected by two outages due to server maintenance (highlighted in grey in the graph below). As these occurred mostly during weekends, though, they have only a limited impact on the overall analysis.</p>
<p>The overall trends in the Twitter-based sharing of the news published by Australian sites have remained stable for the most part. After a difficult April, the <em>Sydney Morning Herald</em> has narrowed the gap to <em>ABC News</em> somewhat, and it is tempting to read this as a reflection of the additional interest sparked by the early election campaign. <em>The Australian</em> and the <em>Australian Financial Review</em>, as prominent platforms with a particular specialisation on political news, have also caught up to match general-purpose site <em>news.com.au</em> more closely. We may see this pattern continued through June and July as well.</p>
<p>Amongst the opinion sites, <em>Crikey</em> has leapfrogged <em>The Saturday Paper</em> and <em>Independent Australia</em> to claim third place during May, and this too is consistent with a gradual shift towards a greater focus on political news as the campaign gathers speed. The comparatively poor performance of <em>The Saturday Paper</em> is most certainly also due to the fact that it is disproportionately much affected by our server outages, which occurred on two Saturdays and therefore specifically affected the day of the week that is most important for <em>Saturday Paper</em> news sharing.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127084/original/image-20160617-11092-1x761ro.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127084/original/image-20160617-11092-1x761ro.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127084/original/image-20160617-11092-1x761ro.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127084/original/image-20160617-11092-1x761ro.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127084/original/image-20160617-11092-1x761ro.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127084/original/image-20160617-11092-1x761ro.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127084/original/image-20160617-11092-1x761ro.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127084/original/image-20160617-11092-1x761ro.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australian Twitter News Index, May 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Axel Bruns / QUT Digital Media Research Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Before we delve into what ATNIX can tell us about the early weeks of the election campaign: I’ve tried, believe me, to find any widely shared stories about Australia’s unprecedented second placing in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. But none of the stories that were widely shared on 14 May or the days following it related to Dami Im’s performance, as it turns out.</p>
<p>This may be because the links shared on Twitter pointed to parts of the SBS site outside of the <em>SBS News</em> content that ATNIX tracks – but more likely, it’s simply because Eurovision is now so widely televised in Australia that Twitter users no longer feel the need to let their followers know about it. And given the delayed telecast in Australia, there may even be a tacit agreement not to post any spoilers about the eventual outcome.</p>
<p>But to weightier matters involving less photogenic contestants: while Eurovision was over within a few days, this year the Australian election campaign drags on for nearly two months. Plenty of time, then, for Twitter users to share the news reports that they think matter to public debate. Here, we’ll focus only on our two market leaders: <em>ABC News</em> and <em>Sydney Morning Herald</em>.</p>
<p>A review of the most shared articles for both sides during May reveals a very strong focus on climate change and environmental policy to date: seven of the ten most shared stories in May have an environmental angle.</p>
<p>The <em>SMH</em> report about <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/global-sealevel-expert-john-church-made-to-walk-the-plank-by-csiro-20160513-gov0k9">sea level expert John Church being sacked in CSIRO’s cuts</a> while on a research voyage in the South Polar Sea leads the field with some 2,700 shares; an <em>SMH</em> article about our passing of <a href="http://smh.com.au/x/-goqcm0.html">the negative milestone of 400 parts per million carbon dioxide</a> in the atmosphere received some 2,000 shares; while more positively, an <em>ABC News</em> report about <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-18/university-of-nsw-engineers-set-solar-energy-world-record/7423762">a new more efficient solar cell developed at UNSW</a> received nearly 1,800 shares.</p>
<p>The processes of politics and the media dominate the next most prominent stories. We recorded 1,700 shares for an <em>SMH</em> article about <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/telling-porkies-gets-easier-for-pollies-as-abc-shuts-down-its-fact-check-unit-20160517-gowt3v">the likely shutdown of the ABC’s Fact Check unit</a>; nearly 1,500 were received by an <em>SMH</em> piece that suggested that <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/coalitions-840-million-interns-plan-illegal-lawyers-20160511-gosd1e">the Coalition’s proposed PaTH interns programme was illegal</a> under Australian law.</p>
<p>In spite of the continuing public debate about Australia’s refugee policy, articles relating to it were shared much less frequently in May. The one story that did receive nearly 1,400 shares was the <em>ABC News</em> report about <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-02/second-refugee-sets-themselves-alight-on-nauru/7377710">a second refugee setting herself alight in the Nauru internment camp</a>; outside of such horrific events, the treatment of asylum seekers is surprisingly absent from our data.</p>
<p>The remaining four most widely shared stories in May again cover environmental matters. Nearly 1,400 tweets referenced <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/dismay-nasa-appeals-to-csiro-not-to-cut-global-climate-efforts-20160511-gosaco">NASA’s appeal to CSIRO not to cut its climate research</a>, reported in the <em>SMH</em>; 1,300 each linked to an <em>ABC News</em> piece about <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-26/red-tape-stifling-local-renewable-energy-projects/7447296">administrative hurdles to renewable energy projects</a> and an <em>SMH</em> <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/confirmed-southern-hemisphere-co2-level-rises-above-symbolic-400-ppm-milestone-20160515-govfq7">follow-up on the 400ppm carbon dioxide report</a>; and on a somewhat different angle, an <em>ABC News</em> report about the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-24/fukushima-operator-reveals-600-tonnes-melted-during-the-disaster/7396362">600 tonnes of radioactive fuel still missing after the Fukushima meltdown</a> was shared some 1,100 times during May.</p>
<p>What has been shared here is an early indication of the themes and topics that Twitter users have found worth sharing with their followers; this serves as a useful counterpoint to the exploration of the themes being addressed in @mentions of political candidates <a href="https://theconversation.com/ausvotes-2016-some-early-impressions-61027">in my recent post about social media in the federal election</a> (which also covered a slightly later period of time).</p>
<p>But while our Twitter news sharing data may point to a growing engagement with Australian federal politics during May, the patterns on Australian users’ visits to news and opinion sites that are provided by our Hitwise data largely reflect the long-term status quo: to date, there is no significant rise in visits to the mainstream news sites yet. Indeed, as was to be expected, <em>Nine News</em> slips back somewhat as the increased flow of visitors created by the <em>60 Minutes</em> kidnapping drama in Beirut in April washes out of the system in May.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127085/original/image-20160617-11089-sehfjm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127085/original/image-20160617-11089-sehfjm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127085/original/image-20160617-11089-sehfjm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127085/original/image-20160617-11089-sehfjm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127085/original/image-20160617-11089-sehfjm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127085/original/image-20160617-11089-sehfjm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127085/original/image-20160617-11089-sehfjm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127085/original/image-20160617-11089-sehfjm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Total visits to selected Australian news and opinion sites, May 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Data courtesy of Hitwise, a division of Connexity.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is no particular Eurovision bump to be identified in mid-May, either, nor should we realistically expect to see one – Eurovision remains too much of a specialty event, and is now too well televised in Australia, to generate an increase in visits to Australian news sites that would be notable against the general backdrop. SBS’s Website may well have received a greater number of visitors from its broadcast of the semi-finals and finals – but <em>SBS News</em>, as tracked by Hitwise, did not.</p>
<p>But back to the election: as we trundle through June and towards the 2 July election date, we would expect to see a gradual rise certainly in the volume of Australian news links being shared on Twitter, and perhaps also in the number of visits to Australian news sites that Hitwise captures. How pronounced such a rise turns out to be may well also reflect how close the Australian public perceive the electoral race to be, so we’ll watch further developments with great interest.</p>
<p><strong>Standard background information:</strong> ATNIX is based on tracking all tweets which contain links pointing to the URLs of a large selection of leading Australian news and opinion sites (even if those links have been shortened at some point). Datasets for those sites which cover more than just news and opinion (abc.net.au, sbs.com.au, ninemsn.com.au) are filtered to exclude the non-news sections of those sites (e.g. abc.net.au/tv, catchup.ninemsn.com.au). Data on Australian Internet users’ news browsing patterns are provided courtesy of <a href="http://www.experian.com.au/hitwise/">Hitwise, a division of Connexity</a>. This research is supported by the ARC Future Fellowship project “Understanding Intermedia Information Flows in the Australian Online Public Sphere”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61223/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<h4 class="border">Disclosure</h4><p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research is supported by the ARC Future Fellowship project “Understanding Intermedia Information Flows in the Australian Online Public Sphere”. Axel Bruns is collaborating with The Conversation in the ARC Linkage project "Amplifying Public Value: Scholarly Contributions’ Impact on Public Debate".</span></em></p>The Australian Twitter News Index for May 2015 shows environment topics to be shared especially widely during the early election period.Axel Bruns, Professor, Creative Industries, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/593152016-05-12T07:19:19Z2016-05-12T07:19:19ZATNIX: Australian Twitter News Index, April 2016<p>Even before Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull fired the starting gun on this year’s election campaign last weekend, Australian media were very clearly switching to election mode. Speculation about any last-minute budget sweeteners and debate about likely policy settings began to pick up, and commentary about the implications of a double dissolution election was already in full swing.</p>
<p>But was any of this reflected in the Australian news stories and opinion pieces that were widely shared on Twitter? Were Australian Twitter users as excited about the prospect of a two-month campaign as Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten, or did they direct their attention elsewhere? The Australian Twitter News Index for April 2016 provides a picture of a public sphere in transition.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122258/original/image-20160512-16431-pzkz63.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122258/original/image-20160512-16431-pzkz63.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122258/original/image-20160512-16431-pzkz63.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122258/original/image-20160512-16431-pzkz63.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122258/original/image-20160512-16431-pzkz63.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122258/original/image-20160512-16431-pzkz63.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122258/original/image-20160512-16431-pzkz63.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122258/original/image-20160512-16431-pzkz63.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australian Twitter News Index, April 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Axel Bruns / QUT Digital Media Research Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Indeed, the month was bookended by major stories. Most prominent overall, and responsible for the sharpest spike in news sharing, on 4 April, was the release of the Panama Papers, leaking detailed information about the politicians, public officials, managers, celebrities, and other plutocrats using the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca to hide their wealth offshore, away from their local tax offices. <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-04/unprecedented-leak-of-offshore-financial-records-exposes-secrets/7293524">The <em>ABC News</em> story about the Panama Papers</a> became its most widely shared article for the entire month, featuring in more than 1,900 tweets (1,700 tweets of these on 4 April itself), with <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-04/explained-what-are-the-leaked-mossack-fonseca-panama-papers/7270690">a special feature explaining the importance of the Panama Papers</a> receiving another 1,100 tweets as well.</p>
<p>A second major story, whose impacts will certainly stretch into May and beyond, is the PNG Supreme Court’s ruling that the detention of Australian asylum seekers on Manus Island is illegal. First posted on 26 April, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-26/png-court-rules-asylum-seeker-detention-manus-island-illegal/7360078">the <em>ABC News</em> article about this ruling</a> received some 1,700 shares on Twitter. Indeed, in what may be an ominous sign for the federal election, an unrelated <em>ABC News</em> story about refugee policy, reporting <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-04/about-90-children-to-be-returned-to-nauru-peter-dutton-says/7297320">Immigration Minister Peter Dutton’s decision to send 90 refugee children from Australia back to Nauru</a>, was shared in some 1,100 tweets since 4 April – this made it the fourth most shared <em>ABC News</em> story for the month.</p>
<p>Finally, it is perhaps no surprise that the extraordinary footage of Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham setting fire to the Condamine River should also receive substantial attention from Twitter users: <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-23/condamine-river-bubbling-methane-gas-set-alight-greens-mp/7352578">the <em>ABC News</em> article containing the video</a> was shared in nearly 1,700 tweets since appearing on 23 April, and this may well point to environmental policy again featuring strongly in the election campaign.</p>
<p>Our focus here is on the major <em>ABC News</em> stories especially because in April the site remained the most widely shared Australian news site on Twitter, while closest competitor <em>Sydney Morning Herald</em> continued to lag behind by some distance. Weekday averages for <em>ABC News</em> appear to have settled around 10,000 tweets, while only about 6,000 tweets per weekday share links to the <em>Sydney Morning Herald</em>; this is a notable drop-off from earlier times, when <em>ABC</em> and <em>SMH</em> often ran neck-and-neck.</p>
<p><em>The Conversation</em>, meanwhile, is now comfortably established as the third most widely shared Australian-based news and opinion site on Twitter, though its numbers are certainly boosted by its disproportionately international contributor and reader base; if we took into account only the tweets by <em>Australian</em> users that contained links to <em>The Conversation</em>, it would most likely rank significantly lower than it does here.</p>
<p>Its top stories during April 2016, incidentally, represent a much broader spread of topics than those of <em>ABC News</em>, and few stories stand out particularly strongly: <a href="https://theconversation.com/factcheck-do-better-pay-rates-for-truck-drivers-improve-safety-57639">a factcheck on the safety impact of better pay for truck drivers</a> received 850 tweets; an article about <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-black-market-in-academic-papers-and-why-its-spooking-publishers-57296">the black market in academic papers</a> 580 tweets; a piece reviewing <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-has-the-eu-ever-done-for-us-57248">the benefits of EU membership for the UK</a> 490 tweets; <a href="https://theconversation.com/david-attenborough-says-the-great-barrier-reef-is-in-grave-danger-its-time-to-step-up-58204">a warning by David Attenborough about the state of the Great Barrier Reef</a> 410 tweets; and a piece about <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-ancient-aboriginal-star-maps-have-shaped-australias-highway-network-55952">ancient Aboriginal star maps</a> 370 tweets.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, our Hitwise data on the news and opinion sites most visited by Australian Internet users paints a rather different picture of the news market, as usual. Here, <em>news.com.au</em> continues to rule, and the <em>Sydney Morning Herald</em> maintains a strong second place, even though its ranking is increasingly under attack from <em>Nine News</em>, following that site’s demerger from <em>nineMSN</em>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122259/original/image-20160512-16426-1ewghhf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122259/original/image-20160512-16426-1ewghhf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122259/original/image-20160512-16426-1ewghhf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122259/original/image-20160512-16426-1ewghhf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122259/original/image-20160512-16426-1ewghhf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122259/original/image-20160512-16426-1ewghhf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122259/original/image-20160512-16426-1ewghhf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/122259/original/image-20160512-16426-1ewghhf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Total visits to selected Australian news and opinion sites, January-March 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Data courtesy of Hitwise, a division of Connexity.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Indeed, <em>Nine News</em> is visited especially frequently during 12 and 13 April, but for all the wrong reasons: the majority of the attention during these days is almost certain to have been generated by the case of its <em>60 Minutes</em> team being detained for their involvement in an alleged child abduction attempt in Beirut (with a smaller spike on 20 April as some of the team are released and begin their journey back to Australia).</p>
<p>Away from such isolated events, the data on total site visits in Australia provide a useful indication of the mainstream news sites that Australian political campaigners are likely to target with their major announcements over the next two months. Our ATNIX data, meanwhile, will show which of the articles that result from this campaigning received the greatest traction on Twitter – not a representative space that reflects overall political opinion in Australia, certainly, but one that tends to attract some disproportionately vocal and influential demographics in society.</p>
<p>Bring it on, as they say.</p>
<p><strong>Standard background information:</strong> ATNIX is based on tracking all tweets which contain links pointing to the URLs of a large selection of leading Australian news and opinion sites (even if those links have been shortened at some point). Datasets for those sites which cover more than just news and opinion (abc.net.au, sbs.com.au, ninemsn.com.au) are filtered to exclude the non-news sections of those sites (e.g. abc.net.au/tv, catchup.ninemsn.com.au). Data on Australian Internet users’ news browsing patterns are provided courtesy of <a href="http://www.experian.com.au/hitwise/">Hitwise, a division of Connexity</a>. This research is supported by the ARC Future Fellowship project “Understanding Intermedia Information Flows in the Australian Online Public Sphere”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59315/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<h4 class="border">Disclosure</h4><p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research is supported by the ARC Future Fellowship project “Understanding Intermedia Information Flows in the Australian Online Public Sphere”. Axel Bruns is collaborating with The Conversation in the ARC Linkage project "Amplifying Public Value: Scholarly Contributions’ Impact on Public Debate".
</span></em></p>Even before Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull fired the starting gun on this year’s election campaign last weekend, Australian media were very clearly switching to election mode. Speculation about any last-minute…Axel Bruns, Professor, Creative Industries, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/575822016-04-11T07:20:22Z2016-04-11T07:20:22ZATNIX: Australian Twitter News Index, January-March 2016<p>In spite of my best intentions, I’m afraid the Australian Twitter News Index continues to be a somewhat irregular affair for the moment, and so this latest update once again covers a number of months: in this case, it’s reporting on news sharing patterns in Australia for the first quarter of 2016. We begin, therefore, with some of the overall trends in the data. Most notable, perhaps, is that <em>The Conversation</em> has advanced to become Australia’s third most widely shared news and opinion site: the more than 260,000 tweets linking to its content during January to March 2016 bested even the performance of such established mainstream news sites as <em>news.com.au</em>, <em>The Age</em>, and <em>The Australian</em>.</p>
<p>It is important to remember here, though, that this figure captures the global volume of tweets linking to each site: <em>The Conversation</em>’s continuing expansion into new territories (now including the UK, US, France, and southern Africa) no doubt accounted for a substantial portion of all tweets linking to the site, and – following <em>ABC News</em> and the <em>Sydney Morning Herald</em> – it is now well on its way to becoming a globally recognised news and opinion site. By comparison, we may also assume that those sites it has leapfrogged since our December update (when it was ranked sixth) continue to be popular mostly with a domestic audience, and largely fail to make much of an international impact.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118109/original/image-20160411-21989-w8csak.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118109/original/image-20160411-21989-w8csak.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118109/original/image-20160411-21989-w8csak.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118109/original/image-20160411-21989-w8csak.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118109/original/image-20160411-21989-w8csak.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118109/original/image-20160411-21989-w8csak.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118109/original/image-20160411-21989-w8csak.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118109/original/image-20160411-21989-w8csak.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australian Twitter News Index, January-March 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Axel Bruns / QUT Digital Media Research Centre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While there is not enough space to cover all the specific news events contained in the present dataset, a handful of other observations are also worth making. First, somewhat hidden in the data is a spike in link sharing activity for a number of sites around Australia Day – and as we will see from our Hitwise data below, this translates into a substantial increase in site visitors especially for commentary site <em>New Matilda</em>: its article on that day’s Google doodle – <a href="https://newmatilda.com/2016/01/26/the-worlds-most-popular-website-just-ripped-the-rug-out-from-under-australia-day/">a stunning artwork commemorating the Stolen Generations</a> – accounts for some three quarters of the 2,000 tweets linking to <em>New Matilda</em> that day, and drives the number of total visits to the site to more than 500,000, when on normal days it struggles to break 50,000. Not all of the link sharing spikes on Australia Day are related to that story, however: the most widely shared piece on <em>Nine News</em>, by contrast, is about <a href="http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/01/25/12/38/dog-accidentally-runs-us-half-marathon-finishes-in-an-impressive-seventh-place">a US dog “accidentally” running a half-marathon</a>, and also gains some 2,000 tweets.</p>
<p>Later in the quarter, SBS (and its subsidiary channel, National Indigenous Television) generate substantial impact, by comparison with their average level of visibility on Twitter, with a collection of articles addressing International Women’s Day. In total, its series of articles highlighting a range of inspiring women – including especially also <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/nitv-news/article/2015/03/06/20-inspiring-black-women-who-have-changed-australia">indigenous Australian leaders</a> – as well as addressing continuing sexism and injustice towards women more than doubles the number of tweets linking to SBS content, to nearly 3,400 tweets on 6 March 2016.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the most shared articles on the leading news sites paint a widely divergent picture of day-to-day politics. On <em>ABC News</em>, they reflect a strong focus on the environment: a 28 March story on <a href="http://abc.net.au/news/7279338">the large-scale coral bleaching in the Great Barrier Reef</a> received some 2,100 tweets, while a report on 31 January on <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-30/fire-ravages-world-heritage-area-tasmania-central-plateau/7127300">the devastating impact of Tasmania’s summer fires</a> gains 1,500 shares, and an article on 21 January about <a href="http://abc.net.au/news/7099336">the International Whaling Commission’s highly critical report on Japan’s continued illegal whaling programme</a> receives nearly 1,400 tweets.</p>
<p>At the <em>Sydney Morning Herald</em>, several issues vie for attention. Leading the back is the paper’s 23 March report that <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/nsw-liberals-concealed-illegal-donors-before-2011-election-win-20160323-gnpsn6">the New South Wales Liberal Party ‘concealed’ illegal donations before the 2011 state election</a>, attracting some 2,500 shares; but a 26 March article on “<a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/this-is-why-finland-has-the-best-schools-20160324-gnqv9l">why Finland has the best schools</a>” is also in the running, with 1,800 tweets linking to it (including quite possibly some Finnish Twitter users). In third place, finally, is the <em>SMH</em>’s 18 January coverage of <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/sixtytwo-people-have-the-same-amount-of-wealth-as-half-the-world-says-oxfam-20160116-gm7h6y">an Oxfam report on the growing global inequality between rich and poor</a>; it received some 1,600 tweets.</p>
<p>As always, our Hitwise data on the total number of visits by Australian Internet users to each of the news and opinion sites we track paint a somewhat different picture, both in total numbers and in the distribution of attention. To begin with, here <em>The Conversation</em> is not ranked quite so highly, since the Hitwise figures do not include international visitors to the site; nonetheless, <em>The Conversation</em> ranks a strong second in the opinion category in Australia, following the <em>Huffington Post</em>’s Australian operation. <em>HuffPo</em> Australia, by contrast, is further ahead of competition such as <em>The New Daily</em> than its link-sharing performance on Twitter would lead us to believe: <em>New Daily</em> readers seem more willing to promote its content in their tweets at this stage.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118107/original/image-20160411-21950-8kjpaf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118107/original/image-20160411-21950-8kjpaf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118107/original/image-20160411-21950-8kjpaf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118107/original/image-20160411-21950-8kjpaf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118107/original/image-20160411-21950-8kjpaf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118107/original/image-20160411-21950-8kjpaf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118107/original/image-20160411-21950-8kjpaf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118107/original/image-20160411-21950-8kjpaf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Total visits to selected Australian news and opinion sites, January-March 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Data courtesy of Hitwise, a division of Connexity.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The overall ranking of the mainstream news sites in Australia has remained largely stable, and a notable gap in the number of total visits has developed between the top six sites and the remainder of all Australian news and opinion sites. Amongst that group, the Australian operation of the UK’s <em>Daily Mail</em> has dropped back again behind <em>The Age</em> and <em>ABC News</em>, following its excursion to fourth place during the November/December 2015 period; perhaps the particularly Australian focus of the news during the summer period (including the coverage around Australia Day and its various ceremonies and debates) has contributed to this renewed focus on more home-grown sites.</p>
<p>Also clearly visible in the Hitwise data is the substantial spike for <em>New Matilda</em> on Australia Day that we have already discussed above. Here, we see a clear demonstration of a site advancing – suddenly and briefly – well above its long-term baseline, but it is also notable that this does not have any lasting effect on <em>New Matilda</em>’s overall visitor numbers. It is quite possible, incidentally, that this increase was driven at least in part by Google itself: Google will often link to further information about the stories behind its doodles, and <em>New Matilda</em>’s story about it may well have been picked up as an article to link to, creating a feedback loop of attention.</p>
<p>What is striking about the key themes during the first quarter of 2016, then, is especially their focus on fundamental long-term topics, from the environment to reconciliation. As we return to the day-to-day politicking of a federal election year, we’re likely to see this replaced again by a considerably more narrow focus on short-term issues.</p>
<p><strong>Standard background information:</strong> ATNIX is based on tracking all tweets which contain links pointing to the URLs of a large selection of leading Australian news and opinion sites (even if those links have been shortened at some point). Datasets for those sites which cover more than just news and opinion (abc.net.au, sbs.com.au, ninemsn.com.au) are filtered to exclude the non-news sections of those sites (e.g. abc.net.au/tv, catchup.ninemsn.com.au). Data on Australian Internet users’ news browsing patterns are provided courtesy of <a href="http://www.experian.com.au/hitwise/">Hitwise, a division of Connexity</a>. This research is supported by the ARC Future Fellowship project “Understanding Intermedia Information Flows in the Australian Online Public Sphere”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57582/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<h4 class="border">Disclosure</h4><p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research is supported by the ARC Future Fellowship project “Understanding Intermedia Information Flows in the Australian Online Public Sphere”.</span></em></p>In spite of my best intentions, I’m afraid the Australian Twitter News Index continues to be a somewhat irregular affair for the moment, and so this latest update once again covers a number of months…Axel Bruns, Professor, Creative Industries, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.