Who Tweets?

Here's an interesting study (abstract only, sorry) that examines who tweets among elected officials.  It concludes:

We find that Twitter adoption and use are relatively difficult to predict. Members are more likely to use Twitter if they belong to the minority party, if their party leaders urge them to, if they are young, or if they serve in the Senate. Surprisingly, we find that electoral vulnerability has little or no effect on Twitter adoption or use. 

 I find the minority party aspect the most interesting.  By being in the minority, your voice can disappear from the mainstream news media, so Twitter makes damn good sense as a way to get the message out.  That alone deserves further scrutiny to discover whether minority party tweets are significantly different than majority party tweets.  I hate content analysis (my major professor liked to call it an intellectual cul-de-sac), but this one that could be not only theoretically interesting but also get some popular press play.

How might they differ?

I suspect minority party tweets will be more likely to criticize the other party.  That seems a given.  I'm open to other suggestions.  And some grad student who wants a thesis topic.

What People know, via Twitter

The fine folks at Pew have a new survey out that describes the growth of services like Twitter, which is basically an update service where, in 140 characters or less, you can share what you're up to, or comment about breaking news, or even describe what's happening. If you haven't tried Twitter, do it.

Twitter has not been terribly successful as a news tool, but I suspect it'll improve. I already get updates from the daily student newspaper on campus. I also get updates from lots of friends and students and faculty -- some interesting, some not so much.

Stories come off a bit petty and sophomoric via Twitter, and the more serious the story, the less it seems to work. In part this is the medium, in part we haven't learned how to send info in this manner. I think it really works on breaking news or commentary as news is breaking -- at least from a news standpoint, in what people know or learn. But at its heart it's a social networking shared experience for the truly narcissistic or deeply connected, meaning I check it a couple of times a day.

Do people learn from Tweets (those individual Twitter posts)? As yet to be studied, though my semi-educated hunch is no, you don't really learn from a public affairs and political knowledge standpoint. Then again, that's not why it was created. I look forward to studies on this.

Oh, and the best uses of Twitter received awards. See here.