Mapping Online Publics

Well, the Queensland state election is about to start in earnest: Premier Anna Bligh is expected to visit the Governor tomorrow to ask her to resolve parliament and call an election for the end of March. As we’re approaching that time, I’ve been starting to get a few media enquiries about the role social media are likely to play in the election – and we’re tracking developments for our international elections research project, too.

In preparation, I’ve started to have a look at the activities of some of Queensland’s leading politicians (some 60 candidates are on Twitter so far, as far as I can tell – quite a healthy number), and I thought I’d share my initial observations here. So, let’s look in turn at the two major candidates for the Premiership, and their deputies:

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It’s difficult to believe that one year ago, significant parts of Brisbane were inundated by floodwaters; thankfully, there has been no repeat of the flood crisis this year. One of the few good news stories to emerge from the disaster was the – overall, very successful – way in which social media such as Twitter and Facebook were used during the event, both by key emergency authorities and by everyday users, from directly affected local residents to onlookers further afield.

Particular kudos in this must go to the Queensland Police Service Media Unit, which – not quite from a standing start, but certainly without much time to prepare a comprehensive strategy for its social media crisis communication approaches – delivered timely, informative, and level-headed updates on the flood crisis as it unfolded. Its Facebook followers grew, literally overnight, by a factor of ten, and @QPSMedia also became the single most visible account participating in the #qldfloods Twitter hashtag.

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Update: added another graph showing the total number of tweets from leading accounts.

Queensland has just experienced a once-in-decades flood event, with the capital Brisbane (where we’re based) hit especially hard. Social media like Twitter and Facebook played an important role in getting information out and organising rescue, relief, and recovery operations.

We’ll have a much closer look at the role of these platforms during the height of the crisis at a later stage, when we find the time – for now, I wanted to post a quick overview of the level of Twitter activity at least. This graph shows tweets using the #qldflood(s) hashtags between 11 and 14 January 2011 (retrieved via Twapperkeeper):

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