In terms of scheduled news events, they don’t come much bigger than a Federal Election. The major parties, along with a collection of smaller groups and independents, spend the weeks of the campaign period setting out their stall for voters. Policies, personalities and the politics of it all dominate the news cycle throughout, resulting in an almost endless amount of news and analysis across all forms of media.
The amount of news generated by a Federal Election is so immense that it can often prove overwhelming, making it difficult to understand which issues are being most talked about, which candidates are making their voice heard, and how media coverage of the campaign differs across Australia.
At Streem, our realtime media monitoring technology uniquely positions us to cut through the noise during the Election campaign and provide clear insights and analysis of the nature of Election news coverage. Our recently relaunched Instant Insights tool has enabled us to build Instant Election Insights, and let me take you through what it offers and the methodology behind it.
What is Instant Election Insights?
Built using the same technology that underpins Instant Insights, Instant Election Insights is a free, easy-to-understand collection of charts and graphs that breaks down the shape of media coverage throughout the Federal Election campaign.
Tracking over 70 politicians and issues all across Australia, Instant Election Insights monitors Election coverage across Print, Online, Radio and TV. From this coverage, seven charts breaking down the coverage for that day and the campaign so far are available.
Two of the charts focus on Election coverage on the given day they are being viewed:
- Leaders’ Share of Voice today, showing the share of voice secured by each of the two major parties leaders each day; and
- Today’s top issues, ranking the four biggest Election issues that day.
Five of the charts span the whole campaign period by default, with users also able to select a specific date range during the campaign for the charts to reflect:
- Leaders’ Share of Voice so far, showing how the two leaders’ media profile has tracked across the campaign to date;
- Top campaign issues so far, ranking the 10 most-mentioned issues so far in the campaign;
- Geographic spread by City (Map), displaying where each of the major parties are securing their coverage from across Australia;
- Coverage by Media Type, breaking out how much of each of the major parties’ coverage comes across various types of media; and
- Leading campaign spokespeople; breaking out who from the two major parties has the highest media profile across the campaign so far.
Thanks to Streem’s realtime media monitoring technology, all charts update in realtime, reflecting the latest data as the stories of the day and campaign shift and evolve.
The methodology behind it
As mentioned above, Instant Election Insights is tracking a comprehensive suite of Federal politicians and Election issues. Both the Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet are being tracked in their entirety, with their cumulative media presences underpinning our charts that show how the Coalition and ALP are faring respectively, such as in the Geographic spread by City (Map).
Of course, Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese are tracked as well, with their media presence driving the two Leaders’ Share of Voice charts.
Beyond the politicians, two dozen issues and topics are being tracked, ranging from the Economy, to Science and Technology, and beyond. The most prominent issues and topics each day and across the campaign so far will be broken out in our two top issues charts, showing how the discussion evolves. Because of Streem’s intelligent realtime media monitoring technology, we’ll be able to add new issues to our tracker, should an unexpected topic rise to prominence during the campaign.
Extensive consideration, deliberation and refinement is behind Instant Election Insights, and the result is a comprehensive picture of Election campaign media coverage.
This is just the start
Instant Election Insights is available at election.streem.com.au complimentary for all, making it easier than ever before to understand Election media coverage.
We’ve also established data partnerships with numerous publishers and broadcasters, providing them with Election data and insights to help them inform their readers and viewers about media coverage during the campaign. If you’re a journalist interested in making use of Streem’s data, get in touch with me, Jack McLintock, at jack.mclintock@streem.com.au.
For corporate and government clients that want to read the news behind the numbers, we are offering a Daily Election Report, delivered every day at 6:00am throughout the campaign. With 12 sections covering the major topics, issues and sectors, and covering the major drops and policy announcements, the Daily Election Report is designed to keep your organisation up to speed with the campaign each day, every day. You can learn more about the Daily Election Report here, which is available for $2,500 excl. GST over the entire election campaign period.
