It is no secret that John Edwards is on Twitter (and about 1000 other social software type networks) and Barack Obama also tweets quite regularly.
To many this may seem like overkill, but in many ways it makes sense, although it can probably be considered ‘preaching to the choir’.
I believe that dedicated followers of a particlular candidate in a campaign may very well be interested in knowing what said candidate is up to at a given time – even if it means just getting tiny updates like ’speaking in front of this and that crowd of students at this and that college’.
Also, it does seem to give the debate an edge when you are forced to express yourself in 140 characters. For instance, check out this tweet from mr. Obama:
Concice and aggressive, right?
With rumours of an upcoming Danish election this blogger is very much looking forward to seeing which candidate jumps on the ‘micro-blogging’ band wagon first, and whether the choice of platform falls upon Twitter or Jaiku.
Even though I personally prefer Jaiku, I wouldn’t be surprised if Twitter drew the long straw on account of its simplicity as well as the fact that it is an established platform in the American campaign.
What do you think?
Oh yeah, btw, I still consider this tweet from Jack Dorsey one of the coolest around…
6 Comments
But how can we know, who’s actually composing and sending out these messages? Am I reading the words and messages of a campaign worker or spin doctor or am I listening to the real McCoy? The really interesting core of the matter is this: This type of communication is unprecedented and we have no norms, ethics or other rules by which to decide whether it is all right to communicate like this (through a middleman) or to what degree it is acceptable to let other people act as independent digital stand-ins across the social platforms. Hmmm…
You’re spot on, and i suppose we have no way of actually knowing.
In the case of John Edwards, I believe the official statement is that Edwards writes his own tweets, whereas his presence across other networks may well be maintained by his campaign crew (understandable and acceptable, if you ask me).
But didn’t we have similar issues when blogs started emerging in campaigns some years ago?
I suppose there’s also an element of risk if you have other people writing your posts.
Especially when it comes to services with time stamps, or even revealing, location based services like Jaiku and Plazes. People – bloggers in particular – aren’t reluctant to out ghostwriters if times and places don’t correlate properly…
Also, I suppose it is a question of whether you admit to being a group of people working towards a common goal and identifying the members of said group, or whether you try to pass off all posts as produced by the candidate.
But looking at John Edwards’ list of networks it is quite obvious that he in no way, shape, or form has the time necessary to do all the updates himself, so in my opinion there’s no credibility lost.
And we don’t know who is writing the comments in newspapers either do we? Or who is actually quoted in the press-release
But when it comes to microblogging I really think it is something that most Danish politicians could benefit from – compared to blogging where most of them tend to use far to many words – on Twitter or Jaiku they would be forced to get to the point which would be nice for a change
Det er selvfølgelig rigtigt, som David, pÃ¥peger, at der kan opstÃ¥ spørgsmÃ¥l om autenciteten. Men som Trine-Maria bemærker, kan man jo stille det spørgsmÃ¥l ved sÃ¥ mange andre medier. Det er blevet hævdet, at allerede Homer og Shakespeare brugte ghost writers. Og jeg har – i bÃ¥de politiske og firma-sammenhænge – skrevet udtalelser, debatindlæg, interviews mv. i andres navne.
Der gælder vel nærmest tværtimod, som Asbjørn er inde pÃ¥, at der ved anvendelse af services som Plazes og Jaiku – med bÃ¥de steds- og tidsangivelser er ekstra muligheder for at afsløre utroværdig fremtræden.
Under alle omstændigheder synes jeg det er ret spændende, hvorledes mikroblogs kan udnyttes politisk i den kommende tid, ja måske allerede i den valgkamp, der efter fleres mening er et nært forestående.
Det er bl.a. et spørgsmål om nogen vil anvende særligt mange kræfter på et medie, som i Danmark endnu kun er en ret begrænset brugerskare.
Men der kan måske alligevel hurtigt hentes en del opmærksomhed på mikroblogging:
- Hvis det understøttes af god pr i andre medier
- Og det er et led i et fremstille et (nyt) parti, som værende anderledes, mere teknologisk og kommunikationsmæssigt upfront osv.
Jeg vil overveje at advokere for dette i et nyere parti – ingen nævnt, ingen glemt!
It is correct that we also don’t know who are writing the press releases and other messages and that this is not a whole new issue. But I still feel that blogging, twitting, jaiku’ing etc. lives within a more personal sphere.
The principle idea behind the social platform tools is based on person-to-person interaction and we assume that the credited sender is that person and no other. Not quite the same with press releases or newspapers.
So my point is this: will this approach catch on? Will people actually buy the concept of politicians twittering away and if they do: are the politicians crossing the line from having representatives to actively trying to deceive people into believing that they are personally there? I have a hard time putting the finger on it, but somehow I feel there’s some very interesting discussions here.
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[...] dag har Asbjørn Poulsen sÃ¥ et indlæg om at amerikanske politikere bruger microblogging i valgkampen – og at John Edwards og Barack Obama er de 2, der er længst fremme med brugen af de [...]
[...] to Comments Asbjørn Poulsen skriver i et indlæg om at amerikanske politikere bruger microblogging i valgkampen – og at John Edwards og Barack Obama er de to, som er længst fremme med brugen af de [...]
[...] at pretty much any given time and post quick event updates it also, as Asbjørn Sørensen Poulsen points out, “does seem to give the debate an edge when you are forced to express yourself in 140 [...]