Last week, Mike Shear of the “New York Times Caucus Blog” talked to us about a variety of topics including the midterm elections, the impact of blogs (such as this one) on politics and Sarah Palin’s reality show. One point that really stuck with me was a comment Shear made about politicians’ use of Twitter and their incorporation of this particular new technology into their campaigns.
This is such a clear shift in the way politicians get their message out to the people. In a sense, this could be seen as an example of the “micro-targeting” that Amy Gershkoff discussed at the beginning of the semester. Twitter allows candidates to directly communicate with people who want to receive their messages. It allows candidates to say things without having to go through a media that is increasingly obsessed with short sound bites.
A great article further investigating the impacts of social media on political campaigns can be found here.
The ultimate effectiveness of Twitter on the political process will remain to be seen over the next few elections, but for now appears to be on the rise. For a quick laugh check out Sarah Palin’s Twitter here.
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