Politics too nuanced for Twitter’s platform
Social media not conducive for effective dialogue
Art by Lucy zumBrunnen
March 27, 2019
140 characters is insufficient for nuanced political dialogue. Just as text messages do not compare to in-person conversation, short online messages are a disservice to effective communication and ultimately harm progress.
Tweets do not always accurately convey the true intent of the speaker. They add a barrier of division between the speaker and the reader and leave too much room for misinterpretation and confusion. Often, the nature of tweets are impulsive. Twitter’s intuitive user interface and simple process is conducive to quickly sharing opinions. Thus, this results in sharing ideas that are not fully fleshed out. In the political sphere, understanding the true impulses of those who represent us is important, but our representatives are elected to represent and serve the views of their constituents — that is what they should convey on Twitter.
Sharing spontaneous and uninformed opinions can serve to alienate readers. For example, recently Ilhan Omar, the district representative for St. Louis Park in the United States house of representatives, released a tweet regarding her views of the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC. This tweet provided a lense into Omar’s beliefs, but it ultimately ended up creating negative tension between her and the many Jewish and pro-Israel constituents she represents.
This important conversation, which would have been better suited to a community meeting, was delegated to the polarizing replies section on Twitter. Rather than laying the framework for a productive conversation, the tweet sparked an onslaught of condemnation messages and ultimately made constructive dialogue difficult.
Despite all the downfalls of Twitter, it is undeniable that the platform plays an important role in the modern day political sphere. When used sensitively, Twitter is a valuable tool to disseminate information and share thoughts.
Thus, relegate the hard political conversations to the appropriate formats and use Twitter’s 140 characters to lay the framework for positive and productive dialogue. Â
