A couple of interesting articles illustrating how the ubiquitous Twitter is providing institutions – in these cases, the US government and television broadcasters - with the ability to guage the public mood. The vast majority of Tweets may be completely inane, but, taken as a whole and with the right monitoring tools, Twitter is a brilliantly useful, real time barometer of popular opinion.
In the absence of any official US government presence in Iran, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and other social media sites are being used to provide the sort of information normally provided by embassy staff. It may not be as reliable as having people on the ground, but it is certainly a lot safer.
For television broadcasters, the emerging habit of Tweeting along with your favourite programme, has given them an immediate guage of whether their programmes are engaging the audience. It may not replace the official BARB ratings as a measure of success, but as Lisa Devaney says, “when a show starts trending on Twitter, broadcast executives can know that they have a hit.”