Is the Government on Twitter just too much?

There have been reports on the BBC website today that the Government is pushing Civil Servants to use Twitter to keep the public up-to-date with what is going on in Government. A 20 page document was published encouraging tweets on “issues of relevance and up-coming events”.

The government and individual MP’s are already active on Twitter to communicate with readers however the government is asking to make 2-10 tweets a day, NOT including replies and not times of crisis when more are expected.

Is this what we want from a government? It isn’t a question of space being invaded by politics – because of course you don’t have to follow ad you can block them, however is it a waste of time? Politics is having a tough time at the moment really deciding the best ways to communicate to the ‘electorate’ and/or public, with so many channels to go. David Cameron gets flack from the media for his PR Webcameron approach, Gordon Brown for acting like your granddad when he first saw a mobile phone, red-top newspapers for ‘dumbing down’ politics for the uninterested readers. What is one supposed to do? Businesses and celebrities have an easy choice as it is all about self promotion, but when the topic is something serious such as government we all seem to become a lot more reserved about the idea of using of new technologies.

I don’t think decisions have bee helped with the high profile use of Twitter by citizen journalists during the Iraq and Iran troubles to tell the world what is happening, and über cool Barack Obama exploiting new media helping him into office (you can read more on this at a previous post here). Will Politics in the UK successfully follow?

As it is those who are realistically in the race for PM in 2010 are like chalk and cheese – new media PR man (Cameron), and old schooler accountant (Brown). It will be interesting to see how this pans out for the politicians – that can answer that question.

What do you all think about this? Is the government wasting it’s time or is it a valid form of communication. One of the comments on the BBC Website is as follows:
“I'm sorry but the government should get on with it's job, not twittering, facebooking or myspacing. Really, anyone who uses these things must have no life”

What do I think? I think we should let the voters do the talking. As it is there is not that much difference politically between Labour and Conservative, the only difference is the leader.

Cheers, Scott

(If you are interested, I have written two essays on a similar topic. I have a post in another blog that maps out the future of politics in 2058 with the use of media as the central topic (pure fiction) and an essay on the use of emotion in political communication, which dances around the idea of different media channels able to employ different political comms strategies [access it here], which directly relates to this blog post.)