Australian Federal Election – Unprecedented Live & Online Coverage

Over the last decade, we have seen the proliferation of online coverage of events around the world as well as the beginnings of close to real-time video from remote areas courtesy of the Internet. Television coverage has made keen use of technology to close the lag time between initial recording and broadcast and the popularity of social media has brought the media and the masses a little closer together.

Video streaming has also become more popular and a number of news websites and television station websites are embracing this means to reach viewers.

Australian Federal Election - Digital Coverage 1

Australian Federal Election - Digital Coverage 1

Australian Federal Election - Digital Coverage 2

Australian Federal Election - Digital Coverage 2

Maybe I am jumping the gun but I was a bit surprised to find that there wasn’t a native iPad application for election coverage with interactive results and news. This could have been an incredible opportunity for one of the major news services to break new ground.

One thing that I still find disappointing is that we are still unable to cast a digital vote. I’ve covered this in a prior blog entry but I’d like to see this happen some time in the next decade. We’ve seen the legal stoush regarding electronic enrolments for the electoral roll so there is obviously a push for electronic lodgement options. We’ve also seen a record number of postal votes and early votes in this election which may indicate people wanting to avoid the long queues and find a more convenient option.

It’ll be interesting to see how news coverage progresses over time but I think this is a pretty exciting time when it comes to communications technology.

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