Long version of the paper presented by Simon Copland, Tim Graham, and Axel Bruns at the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) conference, 12-16 Oct. 2021.

1. From cable niche to social media success:
international engagement with Sky News Australia’s
brand of ‘news’
Simon Copland
School of Sociology, Australian National
University
Axel Bruns
Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland
University of Technology
Timothy Graham
Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland
University of Technology

2. Dataset
• YouTube:
• 20,000 videos from the Sky News Australia YouTube channel, collected using the DMI
YouTube Data Tools
• Posted from March 2020 to February 2021
• Facebook:
• Posts from public pages, public groups, public verified profiles (via CrowdTangle):
• Posts containing links to the YouTube videos:
22,282 posts; 7,955 unique spaces; 3,470 unique videos – more spaces sharing fewer videos
• Posts containing native Facebook videos from the Sky News Australia page:
37,350 posts; 5,184 unique spaces; 11,660 unique videos – fewer spaces sharing more videos
• Timeframe: 1 Apr. 2020 to 31 Mar. 2021
• Pairwise comparison of YouTube video descriptions and Facebook video messages to
identify correspondence between videos
• Automated and manual coding of video descriptions
• Topic modelling of text in video descriptions

3. (Data from CrowdTangle, a public insights tool owned and operated by Facebook.)

4. Space-Video Network
Nodes: public pages, groups, verified profiles / videos in posts
Size: weighted degree
Colour: weighted out-degree (most prolific sharers)

5. Space-Video Network
Nodes: public pages, groups, verified profiles / videos in posts
Size: weighted degree
Colour: weighted in-degree (most shared videos)

6. Space-Video Network
Nodes: public pages, groups, verified profiles / videos in posts
Size: weighted degree
Colour: weighted out-degree (most prolific sharers)

7. Space-Video Network
Nodes: public pages, groups, verified profiles / videos in posts
Size: weighted degree
Colour: most subscribers

8. Space-Video Network
Nodes: public pages, groups, verified profiles / videos in posts
Size: weighted degree
Colour: page admin country

9. Nodes: public pages, groups, verified profiles / videos in posts
Size: weighted degree
Colour: public page / public group / public verified profile

10. Theme Country
2020 US Presidential Election 1 US
2020 US Presidential Election 2 US
Donald Trump US
Donald Trump coronavirus infection US
Hunter Biden e-mail conspiracy theory/2020 US Presidential Election US
US politics (in particular black lives matter and trans issues) US
Anti left/Anti globalism INT
Anti-China 1 INT
Anti-China 2 INT
COVID impact on economy INT
Elections in Australia/US INT
Free speech/censorship/political correctness INT
Global coronavirus news, including conspiracy theories INT
Mental health/suicide INT
Australia economy/economic policy AUS
Claremont killer AUS
Climate change/energy policy AUS
Coronavirus (in Australia) AUS
COVID-19 AUS

11. Space-Video Network
Nodes: public pages, groups, verified profiles / videos in posts
Size: weighted degree
Colour: Australian / United States / international / other video theme

12. Space-Video Network
Nodes: public pages, groups, verified profiles / videos in posts
Size: weighted degree
Colour: Australian / United States / international / other video theme
Large number of spaces, mostly
public groups related to US politics,
sharing a smaller number of
videos, predominantly from
YouTube, with mostly American
themes.
Small number of Australian
spaces, some official Sky
News-affiliated pages,
sharing many videos,
predominantly from
Facebook, with mostly
Australian themes.
Diverse range of spaces,
including public groups and
public pages promoting
conspiracy theories and
COVID-19 misinformation,
sharing videos from both
YouTube and Facebook, with
international and other
themes.

13. Concluding remarks

14. CRICOS No.00213J
This research is funded by the ARC project DP200101317 Evaluating the Challenge of 'Fake News'
and Other Malinformation.
It is also supported by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-
Making and Society.
Facebook data are provided courtesy of CrowdTangle.
Acknowledgments