Twitter and Politics

Twitter and Politics. Source: BusinessInsider

Matthew Ingram, an award-winning journalist, has spent the past fifteen years writing about business, technology, and new media as a reporter, columnist, and blogger. Ingram contributed an article titled “TwitterSpin:What Happens When Politics Goes Real Time” in Businessweek Magazine. The article discusses the most recent presidential election, between President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, which is said to be “the most tweeted-about event in U.S. political history, and one of the most tweeted-about events ever-close to the record set during the Super Bowl”. There is no doubt that Twitter has taken social media to a whole new level, but what is even more important is realizing how it is incorporating important political issues into every day discussions.

Matthew Ingram. Source: DigitalJournal

Twitter popularity provides both pros and cons when it comes to politics. While Twitter allows people to provide immediate commentary, it also creates a “sideshow” as Ingram calls it, where it merely becomes an open source for any and all kinds of commentary. We have come a long way as a society in terms of socializing and interacting with one another. The times of meeting up in bars, local viewing events, etc. to discuss presidential debates or have political discussions in general have transitioned to online back and forth banter.

This article reminds me of another article we read for class, “The Revolutions Were Tweeted: Information Flows During the 2011 Tunisian and Egyptain Revolutions”, which discusses how Twitter plays a key role in amplifying and spreading timely information across the globe. It details the networked production and dissemination of news on Twitter during snapshots of the 2011 Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions as seen through information flows across activists, bloggers, journalists, mainstream media outlets, and other engaged participants. This is just one example of how Twitter can be an advantage and used as an outlet to discuss politics in that it increases discussions amongst people and spreads the word on certain issues. This same reason can also been seen as a con and raises the question if tweets contribute at all to anyone’s understanding of an issue or not? Or does it actually just add fuel to a meaningless fire?

Political Tweets. Source: Economist 

I think Twitter is a great source for those too lazy to do research on their own, to go out in search of facts for themselves, and actually dig deep to the roots of the issues (for example, the policies of each candidate, their stance on a specific topic, etc). This being said, I do think Twitter is a great outlet when used effectively, but do think people take advantage of its’ accessibility.

What are your opinions? Does real-time commentary add a theatrical element to important issues, such as politics? Or is the mere fact that people are paying attention to these important issues enough?