Federal politicians are reportedly accessing a $159 million budget to hire extra staff to produce social media content, raising questions about whether taxpayers are seeing a return on investment.
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The Daily Telegraph reports that $159 million has been allocated over four years for additional electorate office staff, with the funding reportedly being used to significantly boost digital content production.
On average, political videos are holding viewer attention for just three seconds.
Over the last six years, Meta—the parent company of Facebook and Instagram—reported that Labor has spent just under $6.5 million on posts related to “social issues, elections or politics,” while the Liberals have spent just under $2.5 million.
Associate Professor Maria Maley, from the ANU School of Politics and International Relations, told Youth Jam’s Isaac Mulcrone that politicians now employ “digital media advisors” alongside traditional media staff.
“Nowadays they now have people called ‘digital media advisors’. In a Minister’s office there (will) always be one digital media advisor. That person is specifically there to do social media. So that is a big change,” she said.
Professor Maley noted the importance for politicians to “communicate with voters” who no longer consume legacy media like TV and print but questioned the primary motivation behind the shift.
“It’d be interesting to think what are they trying to achieve? Is it just to get their profile up? Because people need to know you. Is it to try and become likeable? Likeability is really important. Or is it actually trying to get information out there?” she asked.
Describing our current environment as an “attention economy,” Professor Maley cast doubt on the return on investment.
“Communicating with young people, young voters, is really important. Maybe young voters are just thinking ‘this is silly, you’re undermining my confidence’. Or maybe it’s turning them more to thinking about politics,” she said.
Professor Maley suggested the need for “better ways of politicians using social media,” noting that some MPs still work with the mantra that “all publicity is good publicity.”
