MPs who were early adopters of social media could be described as the Wayne Gretzky’s of the House of Commons; they went to where the conversation was going to be.
The online conversation is now well established.
Canadian’s have been debating politics and public policy issues among themselves on digital channels for years. It’s where Canadians are going to do learn more about current event and political goings-on. Studies show online plays a significant role in helping Canadians arrive at informed (sometimes misinformed) decisions. Traditional media still carry influence. However, appointment-based news delivery such as on television and radio is having a very hard time competing with the Internet. By the time the six o’clock news comes on, most of us know what’s happened that day several times over.
Just like the news of which I wrote, this phenomena is old news.
Which is why more and more politicians are making the move to the online world. And why journalists are calling their digitally-connected sources for opinions on the role social networking services like Twitter will play in the next federal election. Rumours suggest that could happen as soon as this spring. Of course, the forecast also called for a federal election last spring and another this past fall. When will we start naming election threats the way we name hurricanes?
I shared my thoughts on the role Twitter might play in the next federal election in a post I was jokingly call Twitter, Rattle and Hum.
Photo: Tropical storm Karl, hurricanes Igor and Julia uploaded to Flickr by NASA Goddard Photo and Video.
comments