Twitter and the 2011 election campaign

So, for about the past 36 hours Canada has been in the midst of a federal election campaign. And aside from discussions of the willingness of various parties to enter coalitions with one another other, the topic that I have seen receive the most attention is Twitter use by politicians and staffers. Given the recent surge in the use of of this platform, and that this will be the first Canadian election to have all major party leaders with fully active accounts it seems not entirely surprising that there has been some discussion about the appropriate means of navigating this new landscape

Almost immediately a number of MPs and Cabinet ministers modified their Twitter names to reflect that they no longer MPs (though the Cabinet ministers still are Cabinet ministers). While a number of opposition types have changed their names, the accounts that seem the most important are those of Cabinet ministers, particularly those ministers who have been using their accounts to make policy announcements (in particular people like Tony Clement).

As I noted a few weeks ago, I think that this melding of public and private personas is potentially problematic and could lead to confusion about the status of certain statements. For instance, are we to now think that all of Tony Clement's old tweets are nothing more than partisan rhetoric (as they came from the account that he is now using and are still accessible through this account). Or are I am to somehow know that those old tweets were written by Tony Clement the Minister and these two tweets are being written by Tony Clement the candidate? And even if this distinction is clear currently, will it be so clear to someone who goes back through these tweets at some point in the future to follow political communications?

To some extent this confusion is already evident. Throughout the day CBC's Kady O'Malley has been tweeting about the fact that Harper's verified Twitter account had until Saturday been used as a non-partisan vehicle but has now started to carry partisan messages. After a quick check of old tweets it became clear that this account's first tweets were partisan messages in the run up to the 2008 election. Given the clearly partisan provenance of this account how are we to understand the content during non-election times? Does this account represent Stephen Harper the Prime Minister or Stephen Harper the Conservative Party of Canada leader? Given that the account has been used for both government policy announcements and partisan messages I think that it is fair to be somewhat confused.

I guess I am now hoping that one of the things this election accomplishes is the creation a slightly better understanding of how politicians should engage with social media applications and how we, as members of the public, are able to differentiate between the nature of the statements made by individuals with a variety of different roles and communications platforms. Whether this new understanding comes to fruition or not, I am sure that applications like Twitter will play more of a role than they have in past elections and that this role is only bound to increase as time passes.

Isn't this the same guy who has the power to overrule CRTC decisions?

Tony Clement's Twitter feed continues to blow my mind. Earlier today he was talking about the songs he was playing on guitar, reminiscing about attending Super Bowls past, and now he is providing Canadians with access to American Super Bowl ads that are blocked from Canadian broadcasts of the game.

In one of Clement's latest tweets he provided a link to a YouTube account that seems to have copies of the Super Bowl ads that can be viewed world-wide (or at least in Canada).

I really wonder if Clement gets the irony of this last tweet.

The same guy who just used his Twitter account to announce that he would be encouraging the reversal of a CRTC decision is now using the same account to complain about another policy in the same policy area. Given that Clement is clearly aware of the popular opinion on the matter (people want to see these ads as part of the live broadcast) and that he is a member of a government that seems to claim that they want to represent such views, maybe he might consider using his Twitter account to announce that this policy will also be subject to further review or reversal.

By the way, is this now the position of the current government on Super Bowl ads?

Score
Cameron 17
Neil 0

Tony Clement/the Canadian Government and Twitter

A few days ago Canada's Industry Minister, Tony Clement, used his Twitter account to publicize the government's decision to get the CRTC to revisit their decision on usage based billing (UBB).

While I guess that things like this are likely to be the wave of the future it is, nonetheless, a little strange.

While in some ways making announcements via Twitter might increase access to the content of the decision, this approach might disperse official policy stances of the government across the web. Determining which of these positions are the official positions of the government, given that they are on non-official sites, might be challenging.

Also, who controls this data? Will these tweets be available permanently and in venues other than Twitter? Will these tweets be considered official government statements? Who will manage this information? All in all, the switch to this platform seems to have been taken without much planning or thought.

All of this is not to say that the current government doesn't have a number of good reasons to move to this platform for official announcements. Firstly, Twitter is fast. For instance, Clement was able to get his message out to thousands almost instantaneously. This speed means that news cycles can be skipped or toyed with. Secondly, Twitter provides a way for the government/ministers to communicate directly with interested parties and the public, a feature that must be particularly appealing to this somewhat media-phobic government. The government does not have to rely on the mass media to transmit their message to the public nor worry that their message might be distorted by devious journalists. Furthermore, follow-up questions from the public (or media) can be addressed directly and quickly (and these are things that Clement seems interested in).

And finally, it seems that with same Twitter account that Clement is using to make policy statements he is also commenting about important topics such as the quantity of Red Bull his squash competitors have consumed or what he thinks about the half-time entertainment at the upcoming Super Bowl.

Thus Clement is blurring the lines between his public and private persona. When he says something on Twitter, as he has been for the past while, is it a reflection of the government's position (i.e. Does the Canadian government think that the Black Eyed Peas suck?) or are such positions reflections only of Clement's personal beliefs? How are citizens to know when Tony Clement is speaking for only Tony Clement or when he is actually speaking for the Government?

Anyway, given that this trend is likely to increase in popularity rather than diminish I think that a few of these issues (and likely a few that I have neglected to discuss) are worth considering somewhat seriously before we proceed too far along this path.

Score
Cameron 13
Neil 0