Taken From howtosocialnetwork.com
Ever since its unveiling from back in March 2006, Twitter has been always associated with entertainment and not necessarily identified with as a tool of political purpose. Yet this all changed in 2008 when presidential candidate Barack Obama deployed Twitter as a means to rally support and communicate with his followers in order to become the first president of the United States of America to use Twitter.
Wikipedia’s Barack Obama on Social Media page notes that ever since then Obama has used Twitter to promote legislative issues and support for his policies, He has also used his Twitter account to respond to the public regarding the economy and employment. And as of June 2014, Obama’s account had 43,38 million followers making it the third account with most worldwide followers. In addition to being in the top ten worldwide in both followers and followed, it also held the record for following the most people.
Taken From Wikipedia.com
Taken From Statista.com
Furthermore, a 2014 study conducted by the website Twiplomacy found that 160 of the 193 countries represented at the United Nations had established government Twitter accounts, The same study also found that those accounts amounted to 505 Twitter handles used by world leaders and their foreign ministers, with their tweets able to reach a combined audience of over 106 million followers.
Taken From Twiplomacy.com
Which raises the question as to why are politicians rushing towards creating Twitter accounts? What’s the secret behind all this?
Well as Parmelee & Bichard (2012) explained in their book Politics and the Twitter Revolution about how the public’s main motivation to communicate with politicians on Twitter is purely informational and that by connecting with them they use their tweets as a news source to keep up-to-date on key issues and candidates. Moreover, followers on Twitter have a guidance motive which means that depending on the politician’s tweets and their interaction with the public those followers build their own opinion on different issues and on who to vote for in the next election.
And as Jericho (2012) writes in his book The Rise of the Fifth Estate, in chapter four Never Read The Comments on how Twitter has the added benefit of allowing the public to voice their criticisms directly to politicians rather than having them ignored as part of a list of unread comments below an article or news story, which in return aids politicians to build a constructive rapport with their followers.
Take From AISFM.edu.in
What’s more interesting is how Goggin (2013) noted in his article Changing Media with Mobile the idea of how mobiles have become fully fledged participators in everyday media especially when it comes to social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, which reflects greatly on the politicians decision behind joining Twitter seeing how it has a great influence on public opinion and in shifting the view of followers on a continuous basis.
But of course Twitter is considered a double edged weapon when it comes to the world of politics, for it has played a role in kick-starting many political careers but at the same time factored in ending many of them. As this article under the name Politicians on Twitter: the Gift That Keeps on Giving, which was posted on the US News website elaborates on this point of how governmental representatives and congressmen do have their ‘whoops’ moments on Twitter which lead to serious outcomes that affect their lives.
This following video conveys the power of Twitter within the American political circuit and how it transformed politics in Washington DC:
Now of course many arguments can be made as to why politicians opt to use Twitter as a communicative tool to get their messages across and gain instant feedback from the public on what issues they should focus on and address next. But at the same time politicians must be extremely wary and cautious when dealing with such a tool, because with one simple mistake your political career may just reach its final stop.
haithem7 