Brittany Wolfhagen

Why Use Social Media?

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Social media platforms are used by 79% of Australians (2018 Yellow Social Media Report, 2018)

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59% of people access social media once every day (2018 Yellow Social Media Report, 2018)

More than a third of people now access social media more than five times per day (35%). Among 18-29 year olds 89% check-in at least once per day (2018 Yellow Social Media Report, 2018)

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Of that, 94% are on Facebook, and 32% are on Twitter (The must-know stats from the 2018 Yellow Social Media Report, 2018)

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ACOSS seeks engage a wide range of ordinary people and leverage off the cumulative political influence.

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Running the campaign this way allows greater individual participation and engagement, allowing publics to be involved in the production, management and even message development (Gibson 2009, p. 293).

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Communications are being shared not just top-down, but also horizontally by publics through the co-production of campaign materials (Vromen, 2016).

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This means publics are empowered to engage with content like never before, with the power to communicate directly with campaign organisers and potentially shape the direction of the campaign itself.

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The ad hoc nature of internet campaigning also means that individual involvement can happen when and where it suits them (Vromen, 2016), which fits perfectly with the majority of publics now accessing social media on a smartphone (81%) (The must-know stats from the 2018 Yellow Social Media Report, 2018).

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Chadwick described the political use of the internet as representing the uniting of “democratic experimentalism” with “non-hierarchical” social movements (Vromen, 2016, p. 80; Dorf & Sabel, 1998).  I think those descriptions apply.

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The internet has expanded the public sphere and this campaign seeks to use it – bypassing the traditional media ‘gatekeepers’, speaking directly with publics and calling them to action (Johnston & Sheehan, 2014, p. 278).