A lot more.
Thought to be the domain of the political left by some, social media has come to be nearly ubiquitous for both parties. One may even argue that the political right in the U.S. has passed the left. While not a perfect measure, one can look at the number of tweets sent by members of congress. From May 8th to June 8th, 2011, members of congress sent 15,383 tweets. The 232 Republicans sent 10,846 tweets (that’s about 47 tweets per member for this month). The 168 Democrats sent just 4,537 tweets (27 tweets per member). Republicans are tweeting almost twice as much.
What other measures can we look at to compare/contrast the right and left’s usage of social media? Does social media inherently tend to the left or right?
Comments 3
David Banks — June 11, 2011
Makes me think Republicans have a lot to hide, and now they're afraid to tweet.
replqwtil — June 14, 2011
I definitely don't think social media as a Thing tends one way or the other. However there may have been an earlier prevalence in its use by the left, due to their supporters probably being a slight majority of early adopters of the technology. However now I wonder if the Right isn't more likely to take up the slack and begin leading in it. Conservatives today are generally much better at message control than the left, and probably like the ephemeral and uncritical nature of social media posting, particularly things like tweets and facebook pages, etc. The quippy-ness possible may advantage the simple messages which the Right tends to push, while further isolating their audience from critical voices.
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[...] the same could be said for the republican candidates. However, they might be a little ahead of the democrats in using Twitter. Obama has responded by beginning to type his own [...]