Prof Scott Wright
Deputy Dean in the Faculty of Media and Communication and Professor of Political Communication and Journalism, Bournemouth University
Ashraf Abumousa, Wed Alfotawi, Ibrahim Awawdeh, Enrico Barsotti, Helen Bramah, Xiao Cheng, Laure Dedecker, Siraj Degnah, Wenqing Fu, Nadia Haq, Ahmet Buğra Kalender, Victoria Knowles, Xinna Li, Diego R. Nunez, Omowonuola Okunnu, Soroush Sayari, Jati Sekargati, Deborah Taylor, Zixin Xu, Xin Zhou
UK Election 2024
Section 6: The digital campaign
62. Local news and information on candidates was insufficient (Dr Martin Moore, Dr Gordon Neil Ramsay)
63. The Al election that wasn’t – yet (Prof Helen Margetts)
64. Al-generated images: how citizens depicted politicians and society (Niamh Cashell)
65. The threat to democracy that wasn’t? Four types of Al-generated synthetic media in the General Election (Dr Liam McLoughlin)
66. Shitposting meets Generative Artificial Intelligence and ‘deep fakes’ at the 2024 General Election (Dr Rosalynd Southern)
67. Shitposting the General Election: why this campaign felt like one long meme (SE Harman, Dr Matthew Wall)
68. Winning voters’ hearts and minds… through reels and memes?! How #GE24 unfolded on TikTok (Dr Aljosha Karim Schapals)
69. Debating the election in “Non-political” Third Spaces: the case of Gransnet (Prof Scott Wright et al)
70. Which social networks did political parties use most in 2024? (Dr Richard Fletcher)
71. Facebook’s role in the General Election: still relevant in a more fragmented information environment (Prof Andrea Carson, Dr Felix M. Simon)
72. Farage on TikTok: the perfect populist platform (Prof Karin Wahl-Jorgensen)
Third spaces are formally non-political online communities where political talk emerges. Building on Oldenburg’s concept of third places, Wright retheorised the concept for online communities where people can come together for informal conversation and socialising. Wright argues that third spaces may overcome some of the challenges with online political communication, including that people may avoid political talk; that it can become polarised; and that it can lack discursive quality. This is because political talk is harder to avoid; people in third spaces are not coming together based on their political views but based on a shared interest; and community norms, ‘regulars’ or ‘super-participants’ act as gatekeepers, plus moderation will maintain a generally respectful tone of debate. While political talk can emerge anywhere, we have observed that some local Facebook groups and forums do not allow political talk. For example, one of the UK’s largest forums, MoneySavingExpert, which has previously been shown to facilitate a range of political talk and participation, asks participants “to please avoid political debate on the Forum. This is to keep it a safe and useful space for MoneySaving discussions. Threads that are – or become – political in nature may be removed…”. There is further anecdotal evidence that party activists strategically target such forums, and this, alongside concerns about mis and disinformation, may also be a factor.
While lots of research has studied how politicians use social media, research on everyday online political talk about UK General Elections, particularly in third spaces, is limited. This study seeks to address this limitation. We present here some initial findings and reflections on a study of election debates on ‘Gransnet’, a forum founded by Justine Roberts in 2011, owner of the large and politically influential Mumsnet forum.
Gransnet and the 2024 General Election
There was extensive talk about the general election on Gransnet, often driven by the news agenda. Using the keyword ‘election’, we identified a range of threads covering everything from voting to the TV debates and Nigel Farage to Brexit. The biggest threads focused on the polls (709), Diane Abbott (505 posts), trans rights (247), and some 587 posts on the clothing choice of one female politician (initially the debate was about whether it was fair to comment on this, and this evolved into a wider debate). Overall, the threads provided an ongoing account of the campaign and result. Some posters noted that they get their political news largely from Gransnet. An example of the dynamics of third spaces is a thread focusing on Farage announcing he would stand received 484 posts. This started off as highly critical of Farage, who was variously described as ‘vile’, ‘a chancer’ and a ‘narcissist!’ until post 30 in which someone responded to a question about what is good about Farage that “he’d got us the Brexit Referendum“. Another person then commented, thanking the pro-Farage poster for pointing the thread out, and they were now watching it – suggesting they had been contacted via Direct Message. Another replied that “He might be marmite but plenty love marmite me included.” There followed an ongoing back and forth ‘debate’ which quickly descended into polarised insults, with little substantive discussion and a debate about whether people were being racist.
After the election, several threads reflected on the result, with comments that were positive about both Labour and Remain in particular. There has also been a push from some to move on, including a thread titled “Now the election is over, let us talk about something else – like the weather!” A particular feature on Gransnet is for people to just post a daily update on what they have been doing, and these also included several reflections on voting and staying up to watch the results.
Finally, it is worth noting that there were ‘regulars’ in the election threads – highly frequent posters – who tended to have strong political views. Based on the initial data collection of 4,232 posts, 43% of all posts were made by the 10 most frequent super-posters, with 352 distinct posters and 161 people making a single post.
In summary, our initial analysis finds that Gransnet featured significant, often strongly cross-cutting political talk that at times descended into personal attacks, particularly around divisive figures and issues. These were largely political threads, in the news and politics sub-forum; this is a specific subset of everyday political talk that tends to appeal to the politically interested and is more easily avoided by those less interested in politics. The next step is to undertake content analysis of the threads, and for a future election it would be important to assess both strategic manipulation by activists and the moderation processes.
Note: this piece was jointly written by participants in the Bournemouth University Digital Methods Summer School.
