Source: The Economist, 2010
Twitter has now become a more preferable platform for politicians to connect with the public and spread messages, an idea mentioned in the article ‘Blogging is so yesterday, politicians turn to twitter’.
Twitter, a user friendly microblogging social network site for people to update their status, comments or even upload pictures and videos they wish to share. You can simple type out your thoughts, current status or even location in less than 140 characters to share with your friends. Besides acting as a powerful tool for marketing and social networking, Twitter has successfully become an important platform in the politics area (Wright, 2009). Due to its speed and simplicity, the public is able to reach politicians easier through Twitter (The Economist, 2010).
‘Twitter messages only go to an opt-in community, which makes it easier to engage in open conversation,’ – Bizstone, Twitter co-founder, 2009, cited by O’Connor.
President Obama (@BarackObama) also uses Twitter as a platform to share political messages, and was able to have massive followers (Wright, 2009). Following by the success of President Obama, The White House (@whitehouse) and administrator offices are also using Twitter to communicate (FoxNews, 2010). Twitter in politics can work in different ways. Besides rapid communication between public and politicians, Twitter can also increase the public sphere. People not only read the tweets from politicians, they asked questions and debate (Wright, 2009). It is proven to become an important tool for mobilizing causes by allowing people to link subjects by theme using the ‘#’ sign (FoxNews, 2010).
New technologies vary day by day. Politicians must learn to go where their voters are (Wright, 2009), using a rapid and simple pathway such as Twitter to keep the public update of any political messages. The public will also want to know and understand the latest news from politicians. However, politicians’ messages should be carefully stated to avoid misinterpretation among the public.
References
1. FoxNews 2010, White House using Twitter to spread messages, viewed on 14/11/2010, retrieved from http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/03/08/white-house-using-twitter-spread-message/
2. O’Connor, R 2009, Facebook and Twitter are reshaping journalism as we know it, viewed on 14/11/2010, retrieved from http://www.alternet.org/media/121211
3. The Economist 2010, Politics and Twitter: sweet to tweet, viewed on 14/11/2010, retrieved . from http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=16056612
4. Wright, B 2009, The effect of Twitter on politics – it’s not just for profits, viewed on 14/11/2010, retrieved from http://www.corporate-eye.com/blog/2009/03/the-effects-of-twitter-on-politics-its-not-just-for-profits/
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