I have already blogged about how David Seymour used Facebook and Twitter to disseminate information about what was happening in relation to the power outage. Earlier in the day, when it was still unclear how long the issue was going to persist, he got a rather interesting tweet. My reading of the tweet is that it comes with a sarcastic element to it. But I am impressed by how David has replied:
David Seymour, the Auckland Power Outage and Facebook vs Twitter
David Seymour is the new MP for Epsom. There have been some who have suggested that he was only elected because of the deal an accommodation from National. However, whatever the reasons behind his election he is now the MP for Epsom and should be judged on his actions as a local MP, as opposed to how he got there.
Yesterday saw a large power outage in Auckland. The area covered by the Epsom electorate was heavily affected. Now there is not a lot that a local MP could do to help fix the issues around the power outage. But they can serve as a key information clearing point to help provide and disseminate well informed and accurate information. It is this role that David took on.
Twitter Stats 20th September to 3 October
Twitter stats are back for the new term. I was on the road for the week after the election and so didn’t get a chance to rebuild the data collection to get rid of the candidates and add all the new MP accounts. I have done a bit of copy and pasting from the last run on the 19th of September so we can have a few insights into how the lay of the land has changed. Check below all the stats for some of my thoughts on how the new term might play out.
These figures cover a 2 week period, not a 1 week period as per normal. Also, because when I did the last data collection on the 19th a small number of accounts had been closed down temporarily I have no base line for them. So I am ignoring them this week. This means that some of the percentage figures for number of accounts that sent 0 tweets may be a bit out.
Most Tweets by an MP:
National: Chris Bishop 49, Simon O’Connor 36, Jo Goodhew 30.
Labour: Trevor Mallard 149, Clare Curran 65, Ruth Dyson 59.
Greens: Catherine Delahunty 145, Julie Anne Genter 110, Metiria Turei 96.
NZF: Winston Peters 7
Others: Marama Fox 311, Peter Dunne 136, Te Ururoa Flavell 23.
Labour, Leadership Elections and Expectations
Labour have released details about their leadership elections. The results are expected to be released on the 18th of November. So there are 6 weeks of the election to run.There are two elements about the process that I think are going to be visible on social media.
The first part concerns the candidates. Labour’s press release specifically mentions a code of conduct for candidates. But this isn’t going to be finalised until after the nominations close. We have already seen a number of interesting social media elements of the debate around the leadership. Former Labour candidate James Dann wrote a rather critical open letter to David Cunliffe on Public Address. We have also seen Karen Price take to Twitter. If the rules around the actions of the candidates and their campaigns are not laid out until after the nominations close can we expect to see candidates and their supporters doing things on social media to try and gain an advantage that may not fall within the rules that are finally laid out? Labour appear to have issues around being able to enforce their own internal discipline. With a clean slate of no rules, and a whip who seems unable to enforce any form of discipline at the moment, how do Labour expect the various camps to act? I expect, until the rules are laid down, that we will see each of the camps using their MPs and candidates to start pushing negative messages about the other side on social media. Because this election is all internal to the party, and the number of people actually voting is pretty small, I don’t think Social media is an effective way to approach the issue of campaigning for votes. All I can foresee is the MPs and activists on each side using social media as a way to attack those who don’t agree with them. This is highly likely to get nasty, and will no doubt backfire on at least on side.
Karen Price, Tarnbabe67 and David Cunliffe
It was revealed yesterday that Karen Price, David Cunliffe’s wife, had recently taken to Twitter. But it seems that she did not make it clear who was behind the account. It seems the media became aware of the account, and who may be behind it, sometime on Tuesday. At that point they contacted David’s office for comment and they received comment that neither David Cunliffe, nor his staff, knew anything about the account. It was around this time that the account was apparently shut down. Karen issued a statement that backs up David’s statement that he did not know anything about that account:
