Social media as a political backchannel: Twitter use during televised election debates in Norway

Twitter has within few years become a prominent “backchannel” for televised political debates by making audience reactions visible online. By adding a specific hashtag to their tweets, Twitter users can take part in larger, public conversations about an event, reaching outside their own network of followers and followees to join the “virtual loungeroom” (Harrington, 2012). The # character is used in conjunction with a word or a phrase in order to connect the tweet to a particular theme. It allows for coordinated distributed discussion on the Twitter platform. Hence, audiences can easily turn television watching into communal, social events. As social reactions to TV shows become visible through Twitter, it allows for examination of the Twitter users’ response to electoral debates in near real-time (Mascaro et al., 2012). Several studies (Twitter, 2012; Bruns and Burgess, 2011; Larsson and Moe, 2011; Diakopoulos and Shamma, 2010; Elmer, 2012; Bruns and Burgess, 2011; Larsson and Moe, 2011) have shown how Twitter has been used as a platform for continued response sharing during large televised events, such as the London Olympics, the Eurovision Song Contest or political elections.