With the election out of the way, the Australian media is hunting for a single over-arching narrative to fit this result. But it’s a struggle, with results differing region by region and, indeed, electorate by electorate.
That’s because Australia has just had its first social media election. No longer is the debate shaped by the major parties into a narrative mediated through newspapers and broadcasting. It was an election where social media enabled profoundly different experiences, some of them shifting with deep ocean currents, others interacting with the visible media world.
Take death taxes: As The Australian reported a week out, it was all over Facebook, liked and shared from group to group, person to person. Facebook usage skews older. For plenty of these users, the death tax was the metaphor that gave understanding to the election. It was heavily promoted by all the extreme right-wing parties.
On social media the algorithm rewards extremism by pulling people’s attention from mainstream political parties, like the Liberal and National Parties, to more right-wing fringe parties like One Nation, Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party and Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party.
It’s not political; it’s business in the attention economy. The algorithm works to keep you on their platform, by rewarding the increasingly shrill. So the right-wing parties are not only taking votes, they are influencing what Coalition voters think.
As Bernard Keane wrote in Crikey last week, the swing right in Queensland ran through the extreme parties to deliver the election to the Liberals. Same on social media where, Pauline Hanson’s Please Explain (the name of her official Facebook page) has 217,000 likes, providing a powerful base.
The death taxes scare reflected the above ground campaign. If you’re not paying much attention, capital gains tax, franking credits, negative gearing, death taxes… hard to tell the difference really. And the “retiree tax” framing? Could mean any or all of them.
It was denied by Labor and refuted by mainstream reporters. Yet people believe “facts” shared by friends or family long before the media, particularly when it confirms what they already think: Labor = higher taxes.
Through Twitter, social media kept governance and corruption alive, most effectively with the reporting on the government’s purchase of water rights. The results reestablished a hard truth for journalists and for the Twitterati: governance is a low order issue for most voters.
There is some evidence that social media activity by religious groups mobilised votes against Labor in western Sydney seats that voted against marriage equality. Much of the campaign in Chinese-Australian communities — fake and real — ran through WeChat.
Most disturbing is the anti-immigration and racist social media campaign circulating around Facebook, particularly driven by the extreme right-wing parties. Research by CrossCheck Australia found:
The lead up to the May 2019 election has been accompanied by a drip-feed of division strengthened through social media tactics. Among the most ugly: misleading content about Muslims.
Their analysis found that at the white ethno-nationalist end, much of this material was circulated by right-wing candidates (Hello, Fraser Anning) and by a network of right-wing groupings. Although this often bounced off events in the visible campaign (such as Labor’s increase in foreign aid) it was largely ignored by the mainstream media.
Similarly, the ABC report on WeChat demonstrated that resentment against refugees was weaponised against Labor within immigrant communities at the same time that anti-immigration themes were being circulated in less diverse regions.
Following the spectacular backfire in urban Australia of Morrison’s $180 million press conference on Christmas Island in February, the Coalition largely avoided the issue in public, other than the light touch dog whistle of “congestion-busting” infrastructure.
Yet, in the last weeks of the campaign, Google trends showed that “immigration” was near, or at, the top of Google searches, even as it was absent from the general media narrative.
There’s been mild self-congratulation among political elites and the media about Australia avoiding the ugly racism that marred populist elections in Europe and North America. A closer look at the campaign on social media suggests that it wasn’t absent. Just quiet.
How do you think the use of social media shaped the election? Send your thoughts to boss@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name if you would like to be considered for publication.
With reference to the “early” episodes of Yes Minister” Bernard would ask Sir Humphrey for advice in regard to a briefing paper that he was obliged to write for someone associated with the Minister. As to either edifying the Minister or his electoral staff Sir Humphrey would either gaze at the ceiling or at the floor and declare “Bernard, I hardly know were to start”!
So it is with this gem of an article. Indeed there are a few lucid, although not necessarily original, observations. It has been noted on these pages that those (significantly) under 40 seldom purchase newspapers or watch (or listen to) mainstream news. A talk-back host might be able to organise a riot during an otherwise uneventful afternoon but such is likely to be the extent of the influence.
J.S. Mill was rather optimistic in regard to the future because he took the view that as more knowledge became known (i.e. more facts accumulated) there would be less to dispute. It seems that the opposite is the case. Certainly more is known but the voters are not corresponding more informed. In fact, as a ratio of available_facts / voter_knowledge the number as become very much smaller. Newspapers were written for the educated (and not the prols) in Mill’s time.
Given a weird combo of voter ignorance (mining creates jobs; climate policy costs jobs etc) anything (as the country has seen) can happen during an election. On the other hand the regionals may come to be taken very much more seriously by the major parties from now on.
Yet, given the (1) increase in ignorance (from the function of household appliances to basic chemistry of the atmosphere – well prior to topics such topics as Free Trade Agreements and the like ) and (2) the “right” to an opinion notwithstanding we conclude that the optimism of Mill is not to be realised.
A provisional reading suggests that the same dispositions are no less prevalent at the current European Elections. Thus seems to be our new world (which might have been pointed out in the article).
Nice to see you back Kyle.
As usual your points are well thought out and often pertinent.
For what it’s worth, I agree with this comment esp as to the problem with Mill’s apparently very reasonable belief about facts leading sensible resolutions.
I have just observed the Brexit imbroglio at first hand for a year or so and do not recall so much verbosity to so little effect, for good or ill.
Sometimes it seems that Douglas Adams was correct when he observed that inhabitants of a happy, well run planet so infuriated other species that they were hit with a discombobulating ray from orbit which meant that they couldn’t stop talking long enough to think anymore.
It has been good to catch up with a few on the list too AR; even if I am told to my face that
religion (in the widest sense of the word) has damn all association with evolutionary brain size. On the other hand, few have had exposure to Pinker, Chomsky and Leakey (to name three) and the more post modernism encroaches the less air-play the topic will receive.
One has to anticipate a few wind-power devotees but the articles and the list hasn’t changed all that much over a six month absence. Regarding the current topic only six replies (at the time of writing) have been posted. Morrison’s inclination to caps and, I suspect, Wittgenstein’s dress sense would attract comments in the hundreds.
Since Crikey has used google transports I no longer receive updates on posts. I alerted Crikey when the changes occurred but (predictably) I received no reply and nothing occurred. I paid for a month because I was rather annoyed with the (superficial) “flier” that arrived in my Inbox on the day after the election and I did want to ascertain the impressions of others in respect of the election.
Those that were most reactive to the temerity that inferred a 3rd term win have had considerably less to say. We might anticipate more sophisticated modelling (of estimation) and more sophisticated sampling. Being a man of the the real world, is such called “win – win” AR ?
I have an innocuous reply to Sainsbury’s “What’s next for Australia’s ‘most important’ relationship?” (regarding Indonesia) which is wallowing in “moderation”. There is nothing like a bit of additional scrutiny in respect of the fellow’s (rather inadequate) story but similarly with your mate (for Tuesday) GR.
I’m sorry Kyle. It was a statement without foundation, had to challenge it. You seem to be unaware when you’re over-reaching but pick the slightest nit on everyone else, including scorecards. Just dial it down a little. You may have something interesting to say and I may miss it due to delivery issues.
In my own defense DB I let rather a lot “go through” on these lists. Secondly, I don’t mind being challenged; in fact I rather enjoy it and the more so for subjects that are quantifiable.
As to the score card, other than mere opinion, where is the quantifiable evidence for the colouring ? Then there is the matter of degrees of colour or hue.
As I have conveyed on countless occasions, I am no fan of Abbott but he is correct in regard to policy for Australia. The emphasis needs to be directed to the top seven or eight polluters. The quantities emitted for those culprits speak for themselves.
THEN the chicken-feed an be considered. Such is another reason for the idiocy of the score card (that the reporter omitted to make).
As to my remark concerning religion and ipso facto language I deemed the statement to be obvious but (correct) I do “over-reach” in respect of assumptions from time to time.
I also have the bad habit of using throw-away lines as a matter of brevity which I need to correct in the next few decades.
As J.S. Mill said to one of his objectors : I pray that you shall never spare me ! Lovelock, arguing with Dawkins, made a similar comment.
Mediscare Mk II ? The progressive side acted like the polls were gifting them government , and they had reason to think that especially as they contracted the same lot to give them the same useless information. So, start practising progressives on scare campaigns on every bill and action of this government. Change Super board arrangements ? How about “ScoMo wants to cut your Super by giving control of it to the people who run the banks”. This has the benefit of actually being true.
Completely agree. There have to be scare campaigns and there have to be enemies to demonise. The Liberals had no policies and a superficially anodyne campaign, but the previous three years’ worth of agenda-setting made their enemies very clear to the electorate. The ALP and Greens were supposedly all posh inner-city extremists who wanted to reshape mainstream culture and manipulate everyday life. The stereotypes were familiar: gender-whispering, always offended, overly sensitive, Barnaby Joyce even mentioned a kaftan! The money-stealing scare campaigns were important but so was the indoctrination of the suburban and rural public. It seemed hugely retro to me; people on social media were talking about “greenies”, a phrase I hadn’t heard in 15 years.
After Trump and Brexit (etc.), the ALP should have realised that a lot of voter choice these days is about punishing imagined elitist enemies rather than supporting particular platforms. Social media encourages vindictiveness and has clearly strengthened this tendency. But they made no attempt to confront this problem. They acted as if individuals saying racist things on social media years ago was not just equally but far more evil than, say, companies not paying billions in tax. Towards the end Paul Keating even appeared. It is hard to imagine that any swinging voter in the key Queensland electorates who knows who Paul Keating is regards him favourably.
Tinkering with ALP policy is probably a good idea, but when is it not? If the ALP runs an aggressive line it shouldn’t be about kindness or fairness. People hate those! Do-gooders are hugely out of fashion. The negative gearing and franking credits policy seemed to start off appealing to the public, but it never gained the momentum it should have. This was likely because the public thought that it was a swindle they could aspire to; who cared whether it was fair to everyone?
The most effective marketing strategy for the ALP would have been, and continues to be, focusing on punishing extremely rich people. “We are going to make Gina Rinehart pay a huge amount of tax; why should she be allowed a swindle that you’re not allowed?” is probably not as good or as effective a policy as the negative gearing one, but it is far, far more marketable. It’s plausible that 95% of the electorate actively dislikes her. Clive Palmer spent enough to have an impact on the campaign, but on every social media post I saw that allowed comments, people mentioned how he doesn’t pay his workers. The ALP didn’t demonise him and didn’t focus on this; they rambled about preferences. The public was left with the (probably true) impression that the ALP was scared of and secretly admired the oligarchy.
Another potential scare campaign is environmental. In the election more people would have reacted badly to that, because clearly plenty of people hold the environment in complete and deliberate disdain. But we needed Grim Reaper stuff here. It didn’t need to be true or even verifiable; it just needed to look like the cover of Dianetics.
To say the same thing in a more academic way, and to tie into the discussion of JS Mill above, people used to think that the Internet was like Habermas’s “public sphere”. That was false because it presupposed that an elite group of well-informed people, with an interest in the development of society, directed proceedings. The Internet is far more like Bakhtin’s carnival; for nearly every user, it is first and foremost for entertainment; more so than TV, radio, and newspapers, on which you can’t gamble or watch porn. It’s true that distracting people with absurdities and misinformation, and appealing to the weaker aspects of their natures, has become a standard right-wing strategy. I see no reason why other political organisations can’t use the same methods. They just need to be more callous and less precious.
There is a good deal of content with which one might be disposed to agree. Alternatively, there some contradictions, here and here, too.
The philosophy of Habermas is consistent with and hence orientated to the Kantian tradition but Habermas also wants (or seeks) a dollar each way. As with Kant, Habermas considers morality as a matter of unconditional moral obligations.
Kant took the view that each reflective individual, guided by the Categorical Imperative, would agree on the imperatives (or results or conclusions) about what ones duty requires or implies. The each-way bet presents itself when the concept of pluralism is introduced; multicultural (and religious) settings if one prefers. Mix-in identity politics and UNLESS there is an appeal to introduce or to adjudicate with classical morality (roughly from Plato to Locke) the conflicting aspirations or claims become so diverse (in a Rawlsian or Noziac like terms) the Kantian approach hits the wall. We could defer to
Nietzsche but such would be the long way around.
The modern day equivalent of the internet for the Middle Ages was The Carnival. Until circa Rousseau, there was no concept of an “individual” as we understand the term today; merely different “selves”; a public (church-attending with social responsibilities to those whom ranked BOTH above and below in status) self and a private (carnival-like, burlesque and low humour) self. The point of the carnival was, for a finite period of time, to “turn the world up-side-down” The Carnival was a social engagement and NOT a vacation or any such thing. For the sake of the Carnival rank (or status) might be “swaped” or even gender. Hence Bakhtin’s reference to “grotesque realism” which more or less sums up the internet or indeed FB.
Contrary to what brixx infers “I see no reason why other political organisations can’t use the same methods” the same methods are in fact used; at least over the longer term. Consider the politics of the ALP from circa 2008; had matters not proceeded as “planned” during early August 2018 Albo may have assumed the leadership earlier. As it is, there is considerable suppressed gnashing of teeth as it is (of late).
One of the “good” things that exist for social media is that we’re all “in it” and that is the very reason for which I (personally) am out of it!
If ‘immigration’ was the quiet issue in this election, then it was the loudest, most virulent and in yer face I’ve ever experienced.
I don’t doubt that social media played a significant part and possibly much greater than we can calculate. When everyone receives their news from their personal echo chamber no wonder the polls weren’t right and nobody could really challenge them, other than William Bowe and others commenting on the unlikely consistency of them.
Anecdotally the death tax was a bushfire that couldn’t be put out. You’d have to be politically unaware to believe it, but those are also the people that decide elections.
Living in interesting times.
First up this is not to be read from a Indigenous perspective my aim is not to hurt but to help. Also I am a mother and I went to both Catholic and State schools equally. I have worded this as best as I can to try and explain why I think immigration still grates in this country. It’s the ideas I’m trying to express not saying word by word set it in stone
We don’t need large families or even medium sized 4-6 children families to keep our society prosperous. Not anymore that was after world wars. We are being progressively out-populated by fundamentalist Muslim people. Immigration into our country for people should not be used to over-populate so as to sway voting strength away from non Muslim ?people. Or to take over parts of our country as their own. Otherwise I have no worries with immigration. The onshore and offshore people ” by