built by the media, supercharged by the algorithms

Written by: Ashlynne McGhee, Head of Editorial Innovation, The Conversation

The media made Pauline Hanson and One Nation, but now the party holds all the power.

For 30 years, journalists have ridden a merry-go-round reporting on its stunts and inflammatory rhetoric, while grappling with how to interrogate its policies and hold the party to account.

In Episode 5 of The Making of One Nation ^[1], far-right communication researcher Kurt Sengul says the party’s used the media.

The media have a lot of power to grant outsider fringe parties with legitimacy and momentum and exposure.

Professional political parties go out of their way to avoid scandal, to avoid controversy, where far-right parties lean into it. One Nation has gone out of its way to generate media coverage.

But he says it’s been a cosy partnership.

It’s been described as a symbiotic relationship. They have something that the media wants, right? Which is the ability to attract headlines, views.

But now? One Nation isn’t so reliant on the media anymore.

It was the first political party in Australia to launch a website, an early adopter of social media, and now the first with its own animated satirical series on YouTube as well as a feature-length film.

Its YouTube channel has nearly 33 million views.

“It’s almost a perfect storm for the far-right”, Sengul says.

Algorithms favour their style of communication, that controversial polarised content. Social media now, if you can believe it, is even more conducive to the far right given that figures like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have really wound back policies around content moderation.

So the digital environment really favours the far-right, the traditional media environment still really favours them. And you have the far-right employing hybrid media strategies that really effectively sort of target both elements.

Listen to the interview with Sengul at The Making of One Nation podcast, available at Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.

This episode was written by Ashlynne McGhee and produced and edited by Isabella Podwinski. Sound design by Michelle Macklem.