Hi all,
In Australia we have an election coming up on 21 August 2010. I love election time.
One of the things I most like about the election time is not so much who wins but trying to read what society’s collective consciousness is going to do and who will win the election. IN the past these two photos reveal how I have learnt about elections and politics. This is not the case any more – or should it be?
Soon after the #spill I was able to find a whole heap of media and political people on Twitter because I was able to follow the conversations about the spill. Having recently experiencing my third birthday on Twitter I realised it has taken a while for a wider cross section of society, media and politicans to use Twitter.
I have also noticed, until the most recent obvious political followers, that there seems to be a predominance of the less conservative views been expressed by those I follow. Recently during my holidays I made a conscious effort to compare the views I was picking up on Twitter and comparing them to views I read in the newspapers. By this I mean I actually read the papers and read them cover to cover – something I never do. I started to see arguments and viewpoints that were not being expressed on Twitter. In fact I was starting to believe that the views I was reading on Twitter were the only issues. So I am grateful for my most recent in depth holiday readings because I believe I was getting a blinkered view about what I believed to be the issues for the election.
Can this collective consciousness be represented through the media? Now that the media is so diverse is it much harder to do or is it being more representative but harder to read?
At least now I have realised I have to look beyond Twitter to attempt the find the answer. Does everyone who uses a #lateline to express a view on an issue ? – No they do not- and are these views representative of reasons and rationales for predicting the outcome of an election? Don’t know the answer to that one but I will soon find out.
cheers Martin
