The greatest impact the Internet has had on politics is democratization. And nowhere is this trend more evident than in the current use of microblogs like Twitter.
The political conversation in the 2008 presidential election is driven largely by blogs and microblogs. Online democratization has blown to bits and bytes the command-and-control approach that campaigns used to take to communication. Mainstream media reporters now blog throughout the day in an effort to compete with the constant, virtual news cycle.
Despite the information clutter, blogs are bringing new life into the political process. Bloggers are looking for new ideas, fed through their personal lens, to produce the original thought that will impress their network of supporters. This is forcing people to think deeply about politics in order to formulate their own opinions and share their thoughts with others. They are talking about politics; they are getting involved. Across the country, records are being set everywhere for participation in the electoral process.
Twitter is filling an important gap in the digital democracy -- a gap that most did not even know was there. If blogs are the inner monologues that occur after we have had a chance to sit down and think, then Twitter is the internal (albeit sometimes random) thoughts that most of us have all day long. Twitter allows us to tap into the collective brain; there is something very fascinating but strangely voyeuristic about this.
People are listening to and analyzing every single word that John McCain and Barack Obama say, so the campaigns don’t necessarily need another channel for communicating to the public. But people are also paying attention to which campaigns and politicians are actually listening to the people as well, and it may be that the true value of Twitter for political campaigns is in listening more than talking. Twitter is more than just a large, unorganized focus group; it is a link to real-time constituent consciousness.
As someone who consults on the power of concise and well thought-out messages, I have a deep appreciation for the 140-character limit of Twitter. If you give a candidate two minutes to say something, he will take three. Limits force message discipline. At the same time, polished messages sound fake on Twitter. This is a delicate balancing act the campaigns must figure out, something they have not done -- yet.
Twitter may eventually have a bigger effect on the political landscape than blogging. The possibilities are limitless, and the creative applications are just starting to be realized. The second presidential debate may have been a town-hall format, but the real town hall was on Twitter’s Election 2008 page. (See video of the page in action.)
For anybody who had his or her computer open to this page while watching the debate, it would have been hard not to notice the stark contrast between the stoic live audience and the very lively online audience. It was not as dramatic a shift as the first televised debates almost 50 years ago between Kennedy and Nixon, but more subtly suggested the game has changed.
It’s hard to tell where this is all headed and just what the ultimate consequences may be to the Internet’s role in politics. Like democracy, it can be pretty messy and unpredictable. But we embrace the Internet’s role just as we do democracy, because, in the end, our country was built on the notion of ultimately trusting the power, the will, and the good intention of the people.
— Mark McKinnon has worked for both Democratic and Republican political campaigns, including Texas Governors Mark White, Ann Richards, and George Bush, Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer, and, in 2006, Senator John McCain's candidacy for President. He is a co-chairman of Arts+Labs and serves on the board of the Lance Armstrong Foundation
Whilst we are all getting excited about twitter's role in the so call digital democracy, a new US Army intelligence report has some startling news about twitter's role in aid terrorism:
I'm a big fan of using technology as tools to get things done and I think it's important to watch the ways things such as Twitter are used in campaigns because there may be some learnings to be pulled from that for use in other areas. I don't think these would be dramatic, industry-shifting learnings, but seeing how others use Twitter and texting, for instance, may create ideas for use in other business settings.
Messages from the Obama camp always end with "fwd msg" There's something visceral in that, I think, where, for a second, someone might think, "Great idea--who should I forward it to?" For our office's text messages (to those who've signed up for alerts), we've begun adding that. Hardly earth-shaking, but a good tiny and potential best practice to steal and use.
And, I do think the campaigns help make some use of technology more mainstream, which helps the adoption in other industries.
But, I agree, this election will not be brought to you by Twitter. While interesting, the Twitter election screen looks a lot like the text comments scrawling across videos on MTV. I think Twitter is benefitting from its use in campaigns more than the candidates and voters are.
Twitter is a great at amplifying certain things, like the John Edwards baby mama drama. But it's also great at driving more traffic to your blog or your news story in the mainstream media. Yes, Twitter is a very small universe but it is a universe that tends to read blogs and online stories frequently. Some of my colleagues at BusinessWeek have amassed thousands of followers on Twitter. When they post a link on Twitter to a story they've written traffic often jumps. A colleague posted a link to one of my stories and it jumped to the second-most read story on the site that day. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but I don't think so.
I've changed my mind about Twitter. For any blogger the question should be, why don't you Twitter? Unless of course, you don't actually like traffic to your blog posts.
Re: "The political conversation in the 2008 presidential election is driven largely by blogs and microblogs."
I disagree here especially about microblogs. I think we're giving the Web wayyyyy too much credit. Half of Americans don't even have broadband connections in their homes. And this Twitter culture is a niche group that thinks itself way more important in the grand scheme of things than it actually is. (Hardly anyone I know outside of this site has ever heard of Twitter or any of the blogs we're crediting for changing the world.)
On the OTHER hand (left, right, you choose), more often major newspapers and TV news shows are citing blogs as their sources for their stories. So in that sense McKinnon has a point as it's somewhat fair to say the blogosphere is helping drive the political conversation through the mainstream media. Whether this is a result of the blogosphere being reliable or the mainstream media being lazy, I'm not sure... as we've also seen how the mainstream media has wasted hordes of time and energy reporting on blog-generated lies. Ratings are ratings.
Back to microblogs, MHulot basically summed up the mindlessness that occurs on the Twitter Election site (more of that here and here). I cannot give microblogs much credit at all for doing anything worthwhile this election season. There's nothing constructive or stable occurring there ever. So McKinnon is right that it was much more lively than the audience at the PBS debates, but if that's the kind of audience they were looking for they should have hosted the debates at a first grader's recess or lunch hour at Creedmore.
No question the Drudge Report has power. But... this blog's argument is that "The political conversation in the 2008 presidential election is driven largely by blogs and microblogs." And I just don't think that is the case.
Right on, Erin! I think blogs and Twitter have definitely made their mark, especially among so-called whitecollar workers, who are online every day during working hours. The very fact that the Drudge Report, Daily Kos, etc., etc. have become common knowledge if not household words is evidence that these blogs have replaced mainstream media in some instances.
Bloggers break news in other areas all the time, particularly in technology, where they frequently have an edge over trade journalists, thanks to good tips and connections. Why should politics be so much different?
I agree, people don't read a blog lookinf for answers or looking to switch candidates, they already made up their minds. They read it to feel smart, most of the times and the rest? to see who made a mistake and who said "prisioner", etc.
Blogs have power? ask Drudge. His website has undeniably changed history. Someone else would have discovered it? sure, but they didn't.
Someone else would had invented modern calculus, but Newton was the one.
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