A review of online coverage of the general election was hosted by The Institute of Future Media and Journalism (Fujo) in the School of Business in DCU’s Glasnevin campus last Thursday night.
ONA was co-founded by Áine Kerr of Storyful and Liam Corcoran of Newswhip. Their objective is to bring the worlds of technology and journalism together in a collaborative environment.
The event was hosted by Jane Suitor and featured panellists including Mark Little, Twitter’s Vice-President of Media for Europe and Africa and Mary Regan, the Political Editor of UTV Ireland.
Each of the panellists spoke for 10 minutes on a particular topic that social media had an impact on during the election. Afterwards the panellists took questions from the audience.
Speakers Kevin Doyle and Dr Eugenia Siapera both discussed how GE16 was a truly digital campaign that saw traditional parties compete with new parties and how traditional media collided with social platforms.
Mr. Doyle also said that opinion polls held by The Irish Independent found that repeal of the 8th amendment was not a major concern for voters during election time.
The Irish Online News Association, in partnership with Fujo, organised the event to give students the opportunity to hear from the panellists some of the interesting facts that they discovered during the General Election.
For example, Sinn Féin received the most negative press out of all the political parties and the Social Democrats used Twitter and social media the most to communicate with their followers.
Mark Little said that social media allows regular people to put more pressure on politicians to answer for their decisions.
“Social media asks the questions that politicians are not willing to and do not want to discuss,” he said.
The night concluded with the panlelists opening up a dialog with the audience by taking some of their questions.
Paul Dwyer
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