In the Twitterverse and blogosphere, issues can appear and disappear at lightspeed and one social media analyst suggests this has changed the whole pace of the campaign for the May 2 election.
“This election is being called by many the social media election,” says Mark Blevis, a digital communications consultant. “Some people have called it the Twitter election. I really think that this is the velocity election.”
Elections used to unfold with the stately, deliberate pace of a baseball game, he said. Not this one.
“This one really seems like a hockey game,” he said. “There’s so much going on and so much activity.”
Blevis said it’s not clear what has turbocharged the campaign.
“I’m not sure if it’s specifically because of social media, that is to say that the campaigns are following social media and seeing what’s sticking and what isn’t sticking and they are able to move more quickly to the next issue, or because social media actually allows people to change the channel more quickly.”
Blevis has been analyzing Twitter traffic throughout the campaign using a program called Sysomos and has found issues appearing, trending and vanishing overnight.
For example, the Helena Guergis issue showed a sharp spike after her sometimes tearful news conference on Friday where she complained about her ouster from the Tory caucus and the cabinet. That suddenly became the most-tweeted topic, swamping taxes, the Afghan detainee situation and the uproar over student voting.
Blevis said that’s because it could fit the 140-character corset of a tweet.
“When you look at Helena Guergis, it’s fairly easy to describe, fairly easy to understand, especially since it’s a personal issue, because people can relate to the idea of being attacked or falsely accused.”
More nuanced issues such as taxes, or health policy or education are hard to shoehorn into a tweet and may get less play online.
