If you have been following on my previous posting "New Form of Media Publishing," you would have come across micro-blogging and Twitter.Internet is widely in use in today technology era. It is able to combine words and images in complex structure with logos, hyperlinks, video, graphic, music and more (Walsh 2006).
Recently, Twitter has become increasingly popular especially to the politician. Malaysia politician such as Anwar Ibrahim, Lim Kit Siang and even our Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak are actively on Twitter. Twitter has been designed specifically for mobile user following the increasing usage of digital devices (e.g. 3G mobile phones) whereby it enables user to post short posting (140 characters) and to spread fast reaching the target audiences.
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How does Twitter spread amongst the politician?
President of US Barrack Obama is the main reason most politician from nationwide starts to tweet. He has been spreading good word of mouth of using Twitter as a dynamic way to inform policies and a way to get the others involved (Maria 2010). He also makes the service appealing to ever politician by naming Twitter as a great way to establish Grassroot Campaign (Reisinger 2010).
Below are the Democratic of Twitter Gap in US (it all started in the US)
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Why Politician Tweet?
Normal users Tweets to share their daily experiences and opinions (Nardi et. al. 2004), politician in contrast, Tweets to keep their followers updated on the most recent issues and as a form to promote their blogs.
Twitter is a powerful yet inexpensive tools of media communication (Gilmor 2006).The old form of media such as newspaper, TV and radio are lacking of immediacy and interactivity between the politician and the readers. Twitter, conversely, is able to keep the readers "live" updated and readers could post comments to the politician opinion.
In Malaysia, the use of Twitter by politician was seen following the 2008 General Election. Both the opposition and ruling party began to post short messages keeping their voters updated on every event they organized.
Picture : Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak Twitter page
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Picture: Lim Kit Siang (opposition Party DAP) twitter
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My Opinion
Although Twitter is vastly in used, blogging is still important. Twitter only provides snippet of information while blog contains more and in-depth information (Asia-new Buzz 2010). Short messages are sometimes risky and dangerous as they could create confusion to the readers. Readers might misunderstand certain content of the messages, hence, create unwanted demonstration.
As a result, we can see most politician who have Twitter account would like to their personal blog (e.g. Datuk Seri Najib Twitter, highlighted for more information visit my blog ..)
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Referencing:
Maria, B A 2010, "Twitter, a new way of doing politics", viewed 9th June 2010 http://www.buenosairesherald.com/BreakingNews/View/32060
Reisinger, D 2010, "Politicians who get Twitter... and some who don't", viewed 9th June 2010
<http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10232667-2.html>
Shahar, A 2010, "Malaysian Politician with Facebook", viewed 9th June 2010
<http://www.malaysiandigest.com/features/42-personality/1164-malaysian-politician-with-facebook-.html >
Anwar Ibrahim Twitter <http://twitter.com/AnwarIbrahim>
Lim Kit Siang Twitter <http://twitter.com/limkitsiang>
Najib Tun Razak Twitter <http://twitter.com/najibrazak>
Walsh, M 2006, "The 'textual shift' : Examining the reading process with print, visual and multi-modal texts", Australia Journal of Language and Literacy," Vol. 29(1), pp 24-37
Nardi, B A, Schiano, D J, Grumbrencht, M and Swartz, L 2004, " why we blog", Journal of Communication ACM, vol.47(12), pp 41-46
Gilmor, D 2006, "We the Media: Grassroot journalism By the People, For the People", O' Reilly Media Inc, United State of America
The Democratic of Twitter Gap (chart), Gawker.com, viewed 9th June 2010
< http://gawker.com/5466880/the-democratic-twitter-gap >
Zahiid S J 2010, "Blogging is so Yesterday, politician turn into Twitter", The Malaysian Insider.
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