Political tweets are from people active in politics

Washington, May 13: People who post political posts or tweets online are often involved in politics in their normal life too, says a research. It means that political discussions conducted on social networking sites like Facebook mirror traditiol offline discussions and do not provide a window to previously untapped participants in the political process. “We find that people who are using Facebook, Twitter or whatever else for political activities, are really the same people who are politically active offline anyway,” said Patrick Miller, assistant professor of political science at the University of Kansas.

Facebook as a political strategy is vastly over-rated. “Social media is not effective at mobilising people who would not otherwise be politically motivated,” Miller continued. It does not persuade people to vote for you and it does not get out the vote by itself.

“But if a campaign could somehow know who are those social connectors out there, then those are the people they should use to dissemite their messages,” the authors wrote.

The study involved a survey of discussions conducted on Facebook and offline. (ians)