For this week’s blog inquiry task, we were asked to review Trendsmap for the top Twitter trends on a particular day in our area, and to reflect on the relationship between these tweets and our local media. When I set up Trendsmap, it was unable to register Bundaberg as my location as there were no trends in the area. Therefore, I have chosen to use Brisbane, as this was the location that the site suggested.
What are the top stories in your area?
The top trends in Brisbane for the 23/07/15 are as follows:
The majority of trends that can be seen are all related to either current national political issues or the major news providers, which would suggest that there will be some sort of relationship between the tweets and the media.
What is the relationship between the tweets and news stories in local media (if any)?
The main stories that the popular tweets are referring to are Bill Shorten’s opinions on asylum seekers and refugees, Bronwyn Bishop’s misuse of taxpayer money, and the closure of ABC stores across the country.
Examples of tweets in Brisbane about @billshortenmp, Labour and #auspol.
Examples of tweets in Brisbane about @abcnews and abc.
Examples of tweets in Brisbane about Bronwyn Bishop and #auspol.
Each of the topics discussed in these trends can be found in both local and national media. On the home page of the Brisbane Times, viewers are immediately shown 2 article summaries about the Bronwyn Bishop scandal, and one about the closure of ABC stores. The Courier Mail also reported on the ABC shop closure in this article: ‘ABC Shops to close nationwide‘.
Even though these are deemed ‘national’ news topics, they are still strongly reported on in the local media as the local audience are still very interested in hearing what is happening across the nation.
These stories are also featured in national media, as seen in the ABC News which included the stories ‘ABC Shops to be closed, jobs to go as retailer moves online’, and ‘Bill Shorten faces stiff opposition from Labor’s left faction on boat turn-backs about-face’. Other national media coverage of these topics was found in the article ‘Shorten faces test over plan to adopt Coalition’s asylum boat turnback policy‘ featured in The Guardian, and the articles ‘Bronwyn Bishop’s Facebook cover photo angers social media‘ and ‘Bronwyn Bishop ‘Choppergate’ scandal inspires memes‘ featured on ‘The Sydney Morning Herald‘.
Can you find evidence that tweets are being used in news stories?
Many of the news stories mentioned above include references to tweets that were made using the trending hashtags and usernames.
Example of the use of a tweet included in the article ‘Bronwyn Bishop and an image emblematic of what went wrong‘ by the Brisbane Times.
Examples of the use of tweets included in the article ‘Bronwyn Bishop’s Facebook cover photo angers social media‘ by the Brisbane Times.
Example of the inclusion of a tweet in ‘Bill Shorten faces stiff opposition from Labor’s left faction on boat turn-backs about-face’ featured on ABC News.
Example of the inclusion of a tweet in ‘Shorten faces test over plan to adopt Coalition’s asylum boat turnback policy‘ featured in The Guardian.
From these examples, it can be seen that a large amount of evidence exists to suggest that tweets are regularly being used in news stories that are relevant to their regions of origin.
Can you find evidence of tweets being used by organisations to promote an event of issue?
With the types of topics that are currently trending in my area, I was unable to find any events being promoted by organisations, however with the high amount of usage that twitter gets in media, I do not doubt that it occurs.
Although this point is not particularly relevant to this week’s tasks, I did find it interesting when reviewing the trending tweets and news stories that there was a high level of usage of the term ‘Choppergate’, one example being in the story ‘Bronwyn Bishop ‘Choppergate’ scandal inspires memes‘ featured on ‘The Sydney Morning Herald‘.
This reminded me of a section from last week’s reading where it was explained that columnists and reporters have been using the created suffixes ‘-gated’ or ‘-gate’ when referring to other political scandals, followed by the suggestion that it is perhaps time to cease using this now obsolete reference to a scandal that occurred over 40 years ago (Whitaker, Ramsey and Smith 2012, p. 89).
It would appear that some professionals seem to have missed the memo.
Reference List
Borello, E, 2015, ‘Bill Shorten faces stiff opposition from Labor’s left faction on boat turn-backs about-face’ ABC News, viewed 23 July 2015,
Chan, G, 2015 ‘Shorten faces test over plan to adopt Coalition’s asylum boat turnback policy’ The Guardian, viewed 23 July 2015,
Fairfax Media, 2015, ‘Bronwyn Bishop ‘Choppergate’ scandal inspires memes’ The Sydney Morning Herald, viewed 23 July 2015,
King, M, 2015 ‘Bronwyn Bishop and an image emblematic of what went wrong’ The Brisbane Times, viewed 23 July 2015,
Network Writers, 2015 ‘ABC Shops to close nationwide’ Courier Mail, viewed 23 July 2015,
Ruppert, B, 2015 ‘Bronwyn Bishop’s Facebook cover photo angers social media’ The Sydney Morning Herald, viewed 23 July 2015,
Ruppert, B, 2015 ‘Bronwyn Bishop’s Facebook cover photo angers social media’ The Brisbane Times, viewed 23 July 2015,
Ryan, P 2015 ‘ABC Shops to be closed, jobs to go as retailer moves online’ ABC News, viewed 23 July 2015,
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-23/abc-shops-to-be-phased-out-and-closed/6641476
Whitaker, W. Richard, Janet E. Ramsey and Ronald D. Smith 2012, Media Writing: Print, Broadcast, and Public Relations, 4th edn, Routledge, New York.
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Hi Dana, great to see your week two blog activity all completed. I had fun with this one, also learnt that for my age I’m quite socially awkward as I had to refer to google for a lot of twitter-related and trend-related answers. Enjoyed reading your entry, I also focused on Brisbane.
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This piece was very well investigated Dana. A wide variety of images used helps to verify your conclusions. I mean that reference list alone deserves its own blog post. #auspol was definitely the big focus for the Brisbane area. Good work.
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