YOUR GOVT ON TWITTER AGAIN [SOCIAL MEDIA AND GOVT]
A while ago I wrote a post about government types on Twitter. What surprised me at the time was that Republicans seemed to outnumber Democrats on Twitter. A blogger from the UK, Mat Morrison, confirms my supposition with a nice map. He also brings up a point I hadn’t even considered. There is almost no cross-talk between the two parties (at least on Twitter). It really makes on wonder what contact Republicans and Democrats have online. Do congressmen text each other all the time? Email? Is participation in social media balkanizing or unifying? The one thing Mr. Morrison doesn’t address is the “authenticity” of congressional tweets. There is a HUGE difference between Hillary/Obama’s staffer written tweet directives and the personal tweeting of Rep. John Culberson, Tim Ryan, Thad McCotter, or Neil Abercrombie (who has a very odd twitter feed… and starts a lot of tweets with a “Hi everybody” or similar phrase).
Agree entirely w/ what you have to say about “authenticity” — I make no judgement about the content (or origin) of the tweets at all. If you take a look at my latest maps though, you’ll see that there is some implied meaning. Congressional peers are more likely to link to “authentic” Twitter accounts, and less likely to link to streams of noise — that at least is how it appears. I suspect that Culberson and Abercrombie are central for exactly this reason.
Incidentally — I notice from the Obama twitter stream that best practice is for staffers never to use the first person (smacks of “inauthenticity” to coin a ghastly word.)
Ha! Thanks for the comment. I feel like “authenticity” is like pornography… “I know it when I see it.” I really like your newest analysis. I am still a little surprised that more senators/congressmen have not started utilizing twitter…