If newspapers are so great, why is the election being fought online?
McSweeney’s today declared ‘the newspaper’ the best eReader on the market. Ha ha, McSweeney’s, very clever.
But in Australia, as far as the election goes, the online environment – from Twitter brawls to polling analysis – leaves the newspaper for dead. While the Age, the Australian et al do eventually catch-up, the online community’s already been there, dissected it and thrown the funeral.
The election is being fought on a new frontier and this instant access to a cosmos of opinions, data, polling and reportage is quite a phenomenon to behold. We are discovering new ways to read data, ways that are dynamic and interactive. These online forums are conversations between pundits, writers, journalists, the politically curious, political junkies, pollsters and voters – and everyone gets to engage, even those whose voices were never heard before. How can newspapers counter that?
In the lead-up to and on election night (21 August, for the absentminded), online eyes will be tuned to the following:
And of course Twitter. The #ausvotes is all the rage of late.
Undoubtedly there are many more. Leave them below and we’ll publish the list.
My tip: there's a good new blog on Aus politics and the media called Get Shortened. A pun on the spill I think! It's at http://getshortened.wordpress.com/
Check it out if you want something pretty objective, factual and original. I can definitely vouch for the above list too..
Amy
13 August at 05:00PM
Is that why it isn't actually about anything?
pk
17 August at 02:17PM
I like your thesis, but I'm not sure I'm convinced.
Political junkies may be all over Twitter and, to a lesser extent, political blogs, but I'd wager your average undecided voter is still getting their info from occasional snippets of nightly news and breakfast/drive radio. It's rarely the passionate who decide elections in Australia.
On the newspaper/online debate though, it is interesting that both Abbott and Gillard were more interested in getting coverage on Mia Freedman's MamaMia, than in a feature by her in the Fairfax papers.
Rachel @ Musings of an Inappropriate Woman
17 August at 06:02PM