I’ve felt a bit sorry – albeit in a depressingly web 2.0 way – for our American Twitter-using cousins over the last week. On two separate occasions they’ve had their real time frame of reference sabotaged by topics completely alien to them. Who is ‘Nick Griffin’? What is a ‘Jan Moir’? Who?
An understandably confused Uncle Sam aside, the last seven days have underlined just how much social media has changed the way in which news is spread around the world.
When Enoch Powell made his ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech on a grim Birmingham Saturday in 1968 it would have not been until that evening that it was reported upon, and then probably not until the Monday that it was widely debated. In contrast, according to the good folks at Radian 6 and Trendistic, a staggering 5,500 posts were published referencing Nasty Nick* around 11pm last night, whilst ‘BNP’ and ‘#BBCQT’ got a further 2,500 each. Indeed, before this morning was done not only had the press dissected Griffin’s appearance on the show but they could produce a snapshot of the public’s response to his performance.
This is, of course, no great surprise, as you’d have to have been under a particularly Luddite-tinged rock to have missed the rise of Twitter et al. What is more of a chin scratcher, on the other hand, is how exactly we can ascertain who earns a sense of authority in amongst all this noise. It was a topic doing the rounds without too much resolution back at the inaugural media140 event in May. Is it an advantage for news to be reported at a faster rate if it undermines the extent to which the author considers his own opinions? With far more people becoming published, are the experienced opinions of professional journalists more or less important.
My own suspicion is that there is still an overwhelming need for the voice of insight in amongst all the shouting (cue image of the heroic David Dimbleby…). However, breaking events of the last week go to show that a large proportion of the audience might have already made their mind up before they even get to hear this voice.
*I wonder how Nick Bateman feels about Nick Griffin. Pretty cheesed off, I’d bet. He’s stolen the poor chap’s thunder and then some.
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