WELCOME TO THE SOAPBOX!

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UPDATE: Papers are now available from the Politics/Media Conference at the University of Melbourne on the 12th and 13th of February 2008. Click for more details.

About the Soapbox

PROJECT ABSTRACT

Politicians and members of the public would once stand atop a soapbox in order to shout their message across to an audience. Now they use a wide range of media including TV ads, social networking websites and all manner of radio and television appearances. This website will harness a range of materials ─ including photographs, texts of speeches, transcripts of debates and political ads ─ to allow visitors to see (and assess) how Australian political actors communicate.

Election campaigns are usually focused on the short-term – the hectic 3 to 6 weeks of the formal election campaign. This website instead allows you to see elections as a continuum; to look back over time to see what the parties and their leaders have said (and promised) in the past. The website includes material dating back over a hundred years so that visitors can recall recent campaigns or compare current events with historical ones.

The Soapbox archive is a work in progress. Video, audio and other materials will be added as they become available.

This research was supported under the Australian Research Council's Discovery projects funding scheme (project number DP0663208).

 
University of Melbourne
ARC