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Ellen Lutton, February 23, 2009
IF YOU think Premier Anna Bligh is full of tweet, you may be right.
The power of the web proved a hit for Kevin Rudd and Barack Obama and now Queensland's political candidates will thrust and parry virtual blows in a high-tech duel for votes.
But experts are sceptical about the role social networks such as Facebook and Twitter will play in actual campaigning and the motives behind the combatants.
Wollongong University digital communications lecturer Jason Wilson said digital media could better connect politicians with their constituents but their use was more likely just a campaign gimmick.
"It seems... Anna Bligh for instance is just jumping on board with this stuff simply because of the election, rather than for genuine reasons of wanting to be more transparent and consultative," he said.
With a March 21 poll confirmed this morning, Ms Bligh last week launched her new website, anna4qld.com.au. The site includes links to MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, a Flickr photo-sharing page, blog site Tumblr, FriendFeed and her newly created Twitter page, where she can "tweet" status updates of 140 characters or less.
Mr Obama had an official Tumblr for his inauguration as US President.
Labor insists Ms Bligh is the first Australian politician to have a presence on the new blog network.
"It means news is not limited to traditional media news cycles," Ms Bligh said. "Information can be accessed direct from their laptops, or their desktop PC, and fellow Queenslanders can now share their stories with me anytime, anywhere."
Mr Springborg's networking is not as extensive as that of the Premier. His site, springborg.com, has links only to Facebook and YouTube, which his spokesman attributed to "limited resources".
The spokesman said the Opposition did not have enough staff to keep updating such sites.
"[Social networking] does make politicians seem more approachable and there's no doubt Facebook and YouTube are becoming more popular as a different medium for politicians to get their messages out to the public," he said.
Mr Wilson said both parties needed to embrace the concept, if only to tell younger voters that they were "looking to the future of Queensland".
Ian Ward, of the University of Queensland, said use of new social media was "perfunctory".
Last week, an Opposition staffer was formally reprimanded after posting insulting comments about the Premier on a Facebook hate group.
And Police Minister Judy Spence is seeking legal advice after a website in her name was linked to a fundraising page for the Liberal-National Party.
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