Abstract
This article examines the circulation of unverified and misleading information during the 2023 Australian Voice to Parliament referendum, focusing on X (formerly Twitter). Adapting Harsin's concept of Regimes of Post-Truth and a participatory perspective of propaganda, we analyse over 224,000 posts, exploring the interplay of Voice-related discussions on X and campaign messaging. We find that the Yes campaign employed a traditional messaging approach, emphasising public support and presenting historical facts and statistics. In contrast, the No campaign's disciplined messaging style mobilised pan-partisan attention, fostering a collaborative ‘truth market’ on X about the constitutional amendment that eclipsed the Yes campaign's more conventional approach. A proliferation of conspiratorial assertions fostered collaborative work from No campaigners as well as participatory efforts from Yes campaigners to debunk and criticise them. We conclude that the No campaign cultivated a series of public relations-induced realities about the referendum, effectively managing attention within a hybrid media system.
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