Canadaka Posted September 9, 2009 Report Share Posted September 9, 2009 I thought the political junkies here might find the new Canadian political Twitter website politwitter.ca interesting. PoliTwitter is a non-partisan service that uses Twitter to connect elected MPs and MLAs with their Canadian constituents with the goal of increasing engagement and promoting open government. Twitter is a micro-blogging service that features brief, to-the-point messages in 140 characters or less. Users can keep track of what politicians are saying and doing, and what regular Canadians have to say about the issues, all in one convenient location. Politwitter is the first service for Canadian politics and has unparalleled filtering and search tools. I figured that many people wouldn’t want to follow others of different partisan leanings but were still interested in what they had to say. So having a site that aggregates all political tweets and filters by partisan affiliation is useful to those people that want to read and interact but not necessarily become a “follower”. The other main reason is to create a directory of all the MPs, MLAs and other notable political tweeters. So it’s easy for people to find their local MP. Tweets can be viewed federally and provincially, or narrowed down by partisan affiliation, province, special events, and more. The site also allows for real-time updates, which is invaluable during fast-paced events like elections. PoliTwitter archives all political tweets, so there is a permanent record that can be used for statistical analysis, trending and a public record. The site also tracks photos, videos and links posted by MPs. Anyone can join in on the politwitter by @replying MPs or by adding any of the Canadian political hashtags to their tweets. If you have any comments or suggestions please let me know! Follow @cka_politwit on Twitter for site updates. How does Twitter make a politician more accountable to the public? • It encourages politicians to be in conversation with the public. It's difficult to avoid input when you're in a publicly available conversation with citizens • Provides direct communication with constituents • in between elections when it's harder to get media coverage (especially for backbenchers and oppositions MPs) MPs can manage their own public narrative • Many people wouldn’t write a letter or call an MP but would feel comfortable Tweeting an MP. • People can be reassured that MPs are not so different than themselves by sharing personal stories • accessibility to a new audience that traditional media sources are not reaching • Adding a more personal touch to politics, could help to combat voter apathy • MPs like to promote local events in their community • Twitter updates are often the first source for news, before blogs, news media and TV. MPs or observers often tweet from their mobile phones. • As far as we know MPs who tweet are not put through any filter like the PMO. And tweets cannot be completely deleted. • Also provides some interesting statistics to see which MPs and which parties have the most followers and how that relates to polls and election results. • Government departments provide updates on programs and spending. Not really any federal twitter accounts, some in Ontario. The US has lots of government Twitters Do you think Twitter is a useful tool for politics and should MPs be using Twitter and other social media? If you do, please view our page listing all the MPs NOT on twitter to help encourage them to join! http://politwitter.ca/page/mps_without_twitter a note to the moderators, I received prior permission from Greg to post this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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