Re-Tweeting Election #Ge11 Aodhán O Ríordáin TD
Re-Tweeting Election #ge11 Aodhán O Ríordáin TD 1 Re-Tweeting Election #ge11 Introduction The 2011 General Election was the first Twitter Election in Ireland. The appetite for increased engagement, accountability and interaction via the social media platform followed the resignation of Defence Minister Willie O’Dea in February 2010, in part because of a carefully composed tweet. By January 2011, Twitter was part of the daily political discourse, as candidates posted their thoughts, policies, pictures and links in the competitive war to raise profiles and attract eyeballs. The beauty of Twitter is that it allows your ‘followers’ to view you in a different lens from the normal political script, and to engage with you on a variety of topics political, personal, trivial and even philosophical. It also allows politicians break some news at appropriate times, and share views on national events without the constraints of a formal press release. This ebook is based on all the tweets published over the course of the General Election campaign, from the announcement of Labour’s motion of no confidence in the government to the day of the election result. It is important to consider that the commentary on the tweets was completed in the months immediately after the election in February 2011, when my memory of events and emotions was still raw and fresh, and not two years later. Therefore, the commentary provided is frozen in 2011 and has not been altered to take account of two years in government and developments in 2013. The tweets and reflections are frozen in time.
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