At the moment the UK is in the middle of a general election, which will select the government for the next four or five years. Last night in the UK the leaders of the three main parties held a televised debate, which, amazingly, was the first time a televised debate had been held in the UK.
The Twitter back-channel last night really came of age, with over 184,000 tweets being sent, using the hashtag #leadersdebate. The question that the volume of Twitter raises in my mind is whether it was simply a bunch of voyeurs, a new version of the ‘chattering classes’, or were the people Tweeting the avant guarde, i.e. shock troops who will initiate change, perhaps by contributing to momentum?
This article from the Telegraph (a pro-Conservative newspaper) has a good analysis of the different media (traditional and social) and they way they interacted with the debate.
Between now and May 6 (election day) the UK is likely to conduct an enormous experiment in the role of Twitter and social media in elections, along with extensive use of traditional routes such as billboards, phone, and mail. Note, the UK does not permit TV advertising for political parties.
I was involved in the twittering debate. And I'm sure if some had the capability to do some serious analysis it probably would find a small percentage was serious comment, and cake sized chunk was died in the wool supporters of political parties slagging the other parties and the rest taking the piss ( which has probably been the honorable and traditional role of the mob in UK elections)
Posted by: Rob | April 17, 2010 at 10:12 PM