Working Paper No. 29

Professionalisation: Of What, Since When, and By Whom

Electoral Regulation Research Network / Democratic Audit Of Australia Joint Working Paper Series.

This working paper distils two presentations, one at the second Australia-New Zealand workshop on Campaign Management and Political Marketing, at the Graduate School of Government, University of Sydney on 18 July 2014, and the other to a seminar of the Electoral Regulation and Research Network, University of Melbourne.

Browse this site to find my publications dealing with Australian election campaigns and political parties. I'm also interested in market research, campaign strategy, and public sector leadership. I'd be happy to get your comments and feedback about anything on this site, by email at stephen.mills@sydney.edu.au

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GRADUATE SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

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University of Sydney | NSW | 2006
stephen.mills@sydney.edu.au
http://www.stephen-mills.com.au/

Measuring Fieldwork
Performance measurement of data-driven fieldwork

Data-driven fieldwork is rapidly emerging as a significant form of election campaigning in Australia. The recent double dissolution campaign set a new high water mark, with no fewer than six separate fieldwork campaigns conducted by political parties, independent candidates and third-party organisations.

What did they do? And did it have any effect? To help answer such questions, as part of a wider study of fieldwork campaigning in Australian elections, this blog pulls together the claims made by the various campaign organisations about their fieldwork efforts. (The data comes from a variety of scattered sources, and there are still a few gaps, so additions and corrections are welcome.)

In ‘data-driven fieldwork’ – also called Obama-style micro-targeting - the older traditions of grassroots community organising and personal narrative are combined with still-emerging applications of digital information and communications technologies, in order to achieve ever more efficient targeting of messages at persuadable voters.

It is both capital- and labour-intensive. So to understand what is going on,