Intellectual Property Law

Twitter Is the New Political Town Square

By Cynthia Brumfield

Patrick Ruffini has this interesting item that tentatively proclaims that as far as politics is concerned, "2008 could be the year of Twitter in the way that 2007 was the Year of Facebook and 2006 was the Year of YouTube." To illustrate the lure of Twitter for political junkies, he cites the crashing of Twitter by live reactions during Monday's State of the Union speech.

It seems to me, based on my limited experience, that Twitter crashes more or less at random, so Ruffini's example may or may not prove the political power of Twitter. A more compelling argument that presages a big role for Twitter in politics is something else Ruffini says. He claims "it's the first place I turn to if I need a quick question answered, and for raw political intelligence."

Ruffini is not a journalist per se. He's a political strategist and blogger. But, he's part of a growing trend of journalists and opinion leaders who turn to Twitter to gather or disseminate information. The tweets from these "elites," which include John Dickerson from Slate, Ann Marie Cox from Time and Mark Ambinder from The Atlantic, are starting to shape media coverage of politics and are really interesting (particularly Dickerson's reports from New Hampshire, punctuated as they were with complaints of cold weather, boring drives and bad food.)

This "microjournalism" is really something new and I'd wager that within six months, most journalists, political or not, will be twittering away.

I must admit that I joined Twitter expecting it to be an annoyance, at best. Twitter and other microblogging platforms are the vehicles through which many users relay the most prosaic and mind-numbing details of their days, such as "going to bed," "watching TV," "coaching soccer."

At the other end of the spectrum are incomprehensible discussions among Twitter users that, while intriguing, are often incomplete because you're not following everybody in the conversation.

In the middle, however, is great stuff, such as breaking news (California wildfires, Obama's victory in Iowa) and invaluable leads. In fact, I was lead to Ruffini's piece because I follow Mathew Ingram. A growing number of articles I read come through Tweet links or blogs that I follow through Twitter.

It's also fascinating to read the crush of Tweets that come through on big nights, such as the last Democratic debate on CNN. I don't follow that many Twitter feeds but the Twitterers I do follow were alive with chatter that night and I read the ongoing flow of reactions with appreciation. It was like a political water cooler

This form of communication is also something new. Before Twitter, this kind of conversational-style text communication existed in the form of IMs, but IMs are limited in their reach. With Twitter, you can eavesdrop (as I mostly do) or join conversations with many people at once. And that is a powerful political tool.

Full post as published by IP Democracy on January 31, 2008 (boomark / email).