CNN Acknowledges Conservatives Are More Effective on Twitter, But Doesn’t Discuss the Reasons Why
ByCNN’s political ticker is carrying the following headline: “Liberal bloggers admit conservatives have upper hand on Twitter”
The article includes comments from both liberals and conservatives arguing that dominance from the Right on Twitter is due to the Leftward shift in national politics in general and the election of Barack Obama in particular. Here’s a snippit from the article:
“With Republicans in control of the largest bullhorn in the world – the White House – there was little impetus for conservative activists to exploit a platform to express their views.
“Conservatives have long had this inferiority complex in the online world,” said Matt Lewis, a conservative who writes for PoliticsDaily.com. “That is because Republicans have been in power when the blogosphere was invented.
Lewis added, “The ability to effectively utilize the Internet in the political realm works very well for the have-nots. It does not work so well for the establishment.”
To that end, Republicans are working overtime to establish a beachhead, online.”
We agree in part. There is no doubt that it is easier to nitpick and criticize than support. There’s also little doubt that the conservative movement online was somewhat demoralized by the practical realities and difficulties of governing during the last eight years and that the Lefty’s online today are learning quickly that the reality of the Age of Obama isn’t a euphoric as the campaign. But, that doesn’t really explain why conservatives have been so successful on Twitter as opposed to traditional blogging or other social media platforms. There are some other factors in the success worth considering.
First, the founders of Top Conservatives on Twitter, Rob Nepell and Michael Patrick Leahy did a tremendous job not only in making the effort fun, but taking the effort viral. For the most part, with a small slip or two, they also resisted their own corronation and allowed the movement they helped to create to grow free of excessive top-down control.
Second, Twitter, as a medium, has characteristics that made it a better — or at least more convenient — launching point for many conservative and libertarian activists than traditional blogging. Twitter’s 140 character limit means that individuals could fully participate while having a job. For awhile on Digg, the joke used to be that “conservatives come out at night” until someone pointed out that this may just be because conservatives tend to have jobs when the sun is up. The Twitter API generated an immediate following among professionals with Blackberry and other mobile communication devices that are regularly checked as part and parcel of being a young or mid-level professional.
Finally, we just wanted to note that the CNN article failed to point out the most obvious thing: The conservative and libertarian Twitter gang is effective because like talk radio heroes before them, they use the medium better than their liberal counterparts. The conservative and libertarians we follow on Twitter are consistently more humorous, fun, and playful.
