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Twitter Vote Report: Dynamic Public Media

email   discuss Posted by Jessica Clark on Nov 3, 2008 at 12:54 PM

After reporting on the surge in crowdsourced poll monitoring efforts, I decided to track the development of the Twitter Vote Report Project more closely in a piece in The American Prospect. The project, which invites voters to “tweet” about their voting experiences, has come together with remarkable speed. It’s also notable that public broadcasters have been key partners in building out the project.

NPR staffers have been collaborating directly on Twitter Vote Report development. “We only have so many reporters who are able to tackle voting irregularities, and they’re going to be working like mad,” explained NPR Social Media Strategist Andy Carvin on Weekend Edition. “If volunteers all over the country are looking at this as well, they may spot something in a part of the country that we just haven’t looked at yet. So it’s a way of spreading the workload out.” PBS, meanwhile, is working with YouTube on a parallel project called Video the Vote, and Twitter Vote Report programmers are working to feature those videos on their maps.

Following the development process as it unfolds across the Twitter Vote Report Wiki, listservs, and tweets has helped to crystallize my thoughts about a term I’ve been honing: “dynamic public media” The term “dynamic media” already enjoys some circulation—mainly as a description of interactive multimedia projects that incorporate video, audio or animation. But I’d propose a different definition for “dynamic public media”: media that evolve through the active engagement of publics.

The Twitter Vote Report project has attracted two publics. The first is a small group of developers from a variety of media, technology and political sectors who have come together as volunteers due to their concern about issues of voter suppression and snafus at the polls. Their direct involvement has shaped and driven the project’s infrastructure and reach. The second public is much larger—voters who are interested in participating by reporting on their own voting experiences or those of others. Over the next day or so, their direct involvement in Twitter Vote Report will determine the content, success and sustainability of the project. The dynamism of this process is visible right on the home page, where several tweets per hour are popping up live.

Developing infrastructure and capacity to support the growth and reliability of this kind of dynamic public media is a very different proposition than developing static content to be broadcast across top-down outlets. I’ll report back on how the project went, and some of the implications for future public media projects.


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NPR staffers have been collaborating directly on Twitter Vote Report development. "We only have so many reporters who are able to tackle voting irregularities, and they're going to be working like mad," explained NPR Social Media Strategist Andy Carvin on Weekend Edition. "If volunteers all over the country are looking at this as well, they may spot something in a part of the country that we just haven't looked at yet. So it’s a way of spreading the workload out." PBS, meanwhile, is working with YouTube on a parallel project called Video the Vote, and Twitter Vote Report programmers are working to feature those videos on their maps. Following the development process as it unfolds across the Twitter Vote Report Wiki, listservs, and tweets has helped to crystallize my thoughts about a term I've been honing: "dynamic public media" The term "dynamic media" already enjoys some circulation—mainly as a description of interactive multimedia projects that incorporate video, audio or animation. But I'd propose a different definition for "dynamic public media": media that evolve through the active engagement of publics. The Twitter Vote Report project has attracted two publics. The first is a small group of developers from a variety of media, technology and political sectors who have come together as volunteers due to their concern about issues of voter suppression and snafus at the polls. Their direct involvement has shaped and driven the project's infrastructure and reach. The second public is much larger—voters who are interested in participating by reporting on their own voting experiences or those of others. Over the next day or so, their direct involvement in Twitter Vote Report will determine the content, success and sustainability of the project. The dynamism of this process is visible right on the home page, where several tweets per hour are popping up live. Developing infrastructure and capacity to support the growth and reliability of this kind of dynamic public media is a very different proposition than developing static content to be broadcast across top-down outlets. I'll report back on how the project went, and some of the implications for future public media projects. http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/blogs/future_of_public_media/twitter_vote_report_dynamic_public_media/ ' />

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