Media coverage

Election Night Broadcasts and the Hybrid Media System: A Case Study of Australia

“…Australian research is scant. Surveys have reported that the audience for election night broadcasts tends to be politically interested and older (Cameron and McAllister 2016: 8; Young 2010: 35–37), while studies of reporting are largely limited to stating viewing figures (Carson and McNair 2018; Carson and Zion 2020). Orr (2015) presents a legally framed overview of Australian election night broadcasts among other countries, but Orr’s study lacks the kinds of granular analysis called for by Chadwick.…”

“…Town hall style debates, organized by the media, did serve to generate more interactivity and limit parties' attempts to control the narrative in a "guided democracy" (Brookes 2011: 68). In the 2019 Federal Election, the limited access given to journalists on the Liberal Party campaign bus led to complaints, and this was arguably the most presidential election to date, with virtually all of the focus on the two leaders and extensive negative campaigning (Carson and Zion 2020;Strangio and Walter 2020). With a hyper-competitive news environment during Australian elections, news organizations have worked to maintain their competitive advantage and position themselves as worthy and trusted actors, including by creating distinctive online offerings that act as one-stop-shops (Brookes 2018(Brookes , 2020.…”

“…With a hyper-competitive news environment during Australian elections, news organizations have worked to maintain their competitive advantage and position themselves as worthy and trusted actors, including by creating distinctive online offerings that act as one-stop-shops (Brookes 2018(Brookes , 2020. However, the audience for traditional media has continued to decline (Newman et al 2018) and digital disruptions have deeply affected the ability of the press, in particular, to cover election campaigns (Bruns 2010) and leading parties to broaden their media targets and approaches to include social and alternative media (Burgess and Bruns 2012;Carson and McNair 2018: 424-25;Chen 2018) alongside TV shows that blur entertainment and news such as The Project (Carson and Zion 2020).…”