When Australia goes to the polls in May, around 600,000 young digitally born Australians will vote for the first time in federal elections.
The University of Canberra’s Digital News Report: Australia 2021 shows that more than half of 18- to 25-year-olds use social media as their primary news source.
This means that campaigns will increase online – away from the checks and balances of traditional media.
“Gen Z is more vulnerable to misinformation because they are heavy users of digital platforms,” one of the report’s co-authors, Dr. Sora Park, to the news guide.
“Younger generations report encountering misinformation more often than older generations. For example, 96 percent of Gen Z had to deal with misinformation about COVID in the past week [according to a December 2020 study]†
dr. Park added that young people are also less likely to trust established news channels and are more likely to experience news fatigue.
“The period of an election campaign can be overwhelming for younger generations and can lead to them withdrawing,” she said.
YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram are the main social networks that young people use to access news, while TikTok is also growing in popularity.
“On these platforms, people come across news incidentally rather than actively seeking it out,” says Dr. Park.
“So the kind of news they are exposed to is limited by algorithms and their social networks. For some people, this may mean not getting a wide range of opinions.”
Each platform has its own mechanisms to fight fake news.
Facebook covers up blatantly misleading posts with links to fact-checking articles from the Australian Associated Press, RMIT University, or the local agency of Agence France-Presse.
More and more people of all ages get their news via Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Photo: Getty
After the Russian RT network was accused of spreading misinformation years ago, YouTube puts a disclaimer under the videos of government-funded broadcasters, including ABC.
RT has since been removed from the platform after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Encrypted messaging platforms like Telegram are also increasingly popular with anti-vax and far-right types to evade the fact-checking and moderation of more mainstream social networks.
However, the users of these so-called “unmoderated” platforms tend to get older.
Dr. Park said young digital natives maintain high levels of online literacy and tend to stick to official accounts, such as those of political parties or news aggregators.
The meme wars flare up.
Political memes are by no means a new election tactic in Australia.
A big difference this time is the newly discovered dominance of TikTok, where many new voters hang out.
Labor posted its first message to the platform in February last year, adding: “Yes, we are now on TikTok….”
The Liberal Party and the Greens were slower in the game, with both parties finally joining the platform last month as elections loomed.
Labor now has about 70,000 followers, while the Liberal Party has about 500.
Interestingly, Anthony Albanese does not have a personal TikTok account, while Scott Morrison does.
The prime minister has nearly 60,000 followers since his first Christmas post.
All three parties have posted politically charged memes showing the latest trends on the app.
It’s a tactic aimed at TikTok’s younger audience, with the same posts not being found on other platforms like Facebook.
Interesting campaign strategy from the greens pic.twitter.com/a3hO0sO1M7
— Zac Crellin (@zacrellin) Apr 3, 2022
Meanwhile, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation made an official TikTok account last November when the party released a satirical cartoon series.
However, the posts on TikTok are just reruns of the cartoon that aren’t even cropped vertically to fit the app’s direction.
Whether this content is compelling or not, bringing election campaigns to more social media platforms is likely to get many of the 600,000 new voters and more.
“We estimate this represents about 75 percent of eligible Australians in that small age bracket, so more is needed in the days and weeks to come until the application deadline is up,” said Evan Ekin, director of media and digital commitment of the AEC. Smyth told TND.
Registration to vote closes one week after the elections are called.