Paper by Axel Bruns, Brenda Moon, and Ehsan Dehghan, presented at the ANZCA 2017 conference, Sydney, 5-7 July 2017.

1. Dynamics of a Scandal:
The Centrelink Robodebt Affair on Twitter
Axel Bruns, Brenda Moon, and Ehsan Dehghan
Digital Media Research Centre
Queensland University of Technology
a.bruns / brenda.moon / e.dehghan @ qut.edu.au

2. http://www2.qut.edu.au/jobs/cbpcif/ https://tinyurl.com/qut-soc-lecturer

3. #notmydebt

4. #notmydebt
• Data gathering:
– TrISMA: comprehensive, continuous tracking of public tweets by ~3.7m
Australian accounts
– Filtered for notmydebt, robodebt, Centrelink, Centerlink, Tudge
 ~407,000 tweets identified
– Adding tweets replied to by / replying to these tweets
 ~440,000 tweets total
– Identification of accounts posting, accounts @mentioned/retweeted, hashtags
used, URLs shared

5. Overall Volume
debt notices sent media reports Centrelink leaks critic’s data AFP / others
investigate
Senate debatewhistleblower
Tudge response
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13Periods:
Brandis on Q&A

6. Observations
• Two main periods:
– Discussion of debt notice problems
– Discussion of Centrelink leaks
 Leaks reignite controversy, shift to (party-) political space

7. Hashtags as Framing Devices

8. Hashtags as Framing Devices

9. Observations
• Two main periods:
– Discussion of debt notice problems
– Discussion of Centrelink leaks
 Leaks reignite controversy, shift from administrative to (party-) political space
• Role of hashtags:
– #notmydebt established very quickly as rallying point for criticism
– #robodebt gradually growing as discussion shifts to party-political struggle
 Successful framing of issue as administrative malpractice, widely accepted

10. Who Tweets, and How?

11. Where in the Network?
4m known Australian accounts
Network of follower connections
Filtered for degree ≥1000
255k nodes (6.4%), 61m edges
Edges not shown in graph
Progressive
Politics
Hard Right
Politics
News

12. Who Is Central to the Discussion?

13. Curating the Debate: Asher Wolf

14. Observations
• Two main periods:
– Discussion of debt notice problems
– Discussion of Centrelink leaks
 Leaks reignite controversy, shift from administrative to (party-) political space
• Role of hashtags:
– #notmydebt established very quickly as rallying point for criticism
– #robodebt gradually growing as discussion shifts to party-political struggle
 Successful framing of issue as administrative malpractice, widely accepted
• Key participants:
– Centrelink, Tudge, Porter, Turnbull refrain from engagement on Twitter
– Progressives prominent, but bipartisan disapproval of debt recovery measures
– Asher Wolf as central curator of news and information, as well as campaigner
 Comparable to Andy Carvin during Arab Spring (but more partisan)?

15. Automated Content Analysis
• Data processing:
– 13 key periods of heightened activity identified
– Retweets excluded to avoid dominance of widely retweeted singletons
– Hashtags, @mentions, URLs removed from tweets in each period
– Log-likelihood ‘keyness’ score calculated for each word in each period corpus
 high keyness scores indicate unusually frequently occurring terms
• Analysis:
– Selection of 25 terms with highest average keyness over the 13 periods
– Shown in descending order by overall frequency across the 13 periods
– Keyness of each word in each period shown

16. The Impact of Brandis and Tudge
Centrelink leaks AFP / ombudsman investigateBrandis Q&A

17. Observations
• Two main periods:
– Discussion of debt notice problems
– Discussion of Centrelink leaks
 Leaks reignite controversy, shift from administrative to (party-) political space
• Role of hashtags:
– #notmydebt established very quickly as rallying point for criticism
– #robodebt gradually growing as discussion shifts to party-political struggle
 Successful framing of issue as administrative malpractice, widely accepted
• Key participants:
– Centrelink, Tudge, Porter, Turnbull refrain from engagement on Twitter
– Progressives prominent, but bipartisan disapproval of debt recovery measures
– Asher Wolf as central curator of news and information, as well as campaigner
 Comparable to Andy Carvin during Arab Spring (but more partisan)?
• Government’s media management:
– Brandis Q&A appearance a minor diversion
– Strategic leaking reignites Twitter debate, invites focus on Tudge’s role
 Far too late in the story to intimidate critics

18. http://mappingonlinepublics.net/
@snurb_dot_info
@brendam
@EssiDeh
@socialmediaQUT – http://socialmedia.qut.edu.au/
@qutdmrc – https://www.qut.edu.au/research/dmrc
This research is funded by the Australian Research Council through Future Fellowship and LIEF grants FT130100703 and
LE140100148.