Shorten, democracy sausage top social media commentary on election day

More than 3 million interactions around Australia’s Federal election were recorded across Facebook and Instagram on election day, 18 May. But it was the democracy sausage and not prospective prime ministers that proved most popular in discussions.

According to the latest figures from Facebook, 3 million interactions around the election were recorded on the day. The Labor Party and its now outgoing leader, Bill Shorten, dominated conversations, with Short’s own Instagram post in the morning of 18 May becoming the most engaged on the platform on the day.

However, it was #democracysausage that topped the overall hashtag tally on Instagram, also proving the third-highest election-related hashtag on Facebook. It was pipped at the post by #paulinehanson and #onenation on the latter social media platform. Other top hashtags were #democracy, #vote, #electionday and #climatechange.

On a more serious note, another notable topic of election conversation was the hotly contested seat of Warringah in Sydney, which former PM, Tony Abbott, held for 24 years but lost in a historic win by independent candidate, Zali Steggall. The related hashtag, #warringahvotes, reached top four status on Facebook on election day, followed by #religiousfeedom in the top five.

Elsewhere across the country, Clive Palmer was found to be the most discussed politician in South Australia and Western Australia on Instagram. Rounding out the top five politicians nationally behind Shorten were Scott Morrison, Tony Abbott, Pauline Hanson and Peter Dutton.

The top five issues discussed on Facebook, meanwhile, were foreign policy, social policy, economy, governance and environmental policy. For voters under 25 years of age, social policy and foreign policy took the top two spots. With women, foreign policy led discussions, followed by the economy. Across the board, 42 per cent of conversations were driven by people between 25 and 45 years of age, while women were instigating more conversations (57 per cent) than men.

Visually, it was Shorten wearing a ‘Vote 1 Chloe Shorten’s Husband’ t-shirt, eating a democracy sausage, and Morrison pictured with his daughters and accompanying caption that saw the most engagement across Instagram.

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