If I had to give advice to 2017 elected officials in regards to Media Richness Theory and social media, I would say that Twitter is your best bet. It allows users to combine personal, written messages with high variety language. Since officials have to reach a broad audience, face-to-face communication, or even phone calls aren’t always effective, although they are higher forms of communication.
Using twitter gives a more effective choice of communication and has the ability to transmit ideas, emotions, and concepts through media such as pictures, videos, emojis, links, graphics, and GIFs. So in other words, don’t sleep on Twitter! It gets your point across, allows the messages to be personalized (because everyone likes relatability), and gives the option of high communication because of the rich options of alternative to text media. This wide selection of media compensates for things lost during face-to-face interaction, such as body language and tone of voice.
Personally, I think Twitter is a #majorkey in terms of political campaigns, and can really be a driving force for influence, audience, and message. And if you don’t believe me, The Atlantic actually did a post on it. They might be a tad bit more credible than me on this topic.
I think it was less Twitter coming to politics, and more politics coming to Twitter and finding it as a platform to communicate and to organize effectively without a lot of the costs historically associated with that. – Adam Sharp
I think Kamala Harris, former California Attorney General, and current California senator does a great job of conveying voice, her platform and getting her message across, all while using rich media.
No one said it better than Coretta Scott King: "Freedom is never really won. You earn it and win it in every generation." #HoldTheFloor pic.twitter.com/QrBO4vcJ03
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) February 8, 2017
We have a responsibility to critically evaluate all nominees’ backgrounds, to make sure they will fulfill their oath & their responsibility. pic.twitter.com/1Ck2NZHmOi
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) February 2, 2017
I really liked the structure of your article! It looks user-friendly and easy to catch your points! Your idea seems to be very clear and easy to follow but just curious if you think Twitter is the best option for political campaigns (at least for impression management purposes)! Under the media richness theory frame, I guess Twitter becomes rather an inefficient channel when compared to other major platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. Since Twitter limits the maximum characters per tweet and sometimes requires users to click the links to check the contents, I am not sure if Twitter becomes the best option. It is quite interesting to see that politicians in Asian countries normally use Facebook or Instagram to engage with their supporters and curious if american politicians utilize Facebook or Instagram to engage with their followers! By the way, thanks for your great article!