Did you hear about the PM? #spill

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Late Wednesday night, I (like many others) noticed something ‘up’ on my facebook news feed. We all caught on of course, it was nigh on impossible to miss the news that Julia Gillard had challenged Kevin Rudd for the leadership and Kevin had asked for a special caucus the next morning to address the matter. Yesterday was a media maelstrom of updates and commentary from Capitol Hill – I expect nothing less from my fourth estate. This isn’t the first time we’ve woken up to a new PM. Keating challenged Hawke for the leadership (and won) in ’91. I have no doubt newspaper sales, and radio/television ratings spiked heavily then as they did yesterday.

What is new this time is the public’s voice.  I (as I’m certain many of you) heard not only the considered expert opinions of political correspondents in Canberra, but we also engaged in a massive dialogue online. Thanks to social media the public sphere was not censored by news directors or radio producers. ‘Julia Gillard’ remained the top trending topic on twitter for most of yesterday and as press conferences were broadcast they were blogged and microblogged live across a number of social media platforms. We’ve blogged before on public events, certainly. The last federal election saw social media become a legitimate channel for political commentary. But the almost instant decrease in use by (most) politicians after the votes were counted made many wonder if they took it seriously.

We also saw the change in the way we seek and find our credible sources. 19 years ago I imagine press conferences were just as hastily announced. Releases and statements rushed to the hands of journalists nationwide. Ordinary citizens like you and I had to wait. We either turned on the radio to hear the (predictable) opinions of the shock jocks. We waited for the 6pm news on TV. We waited for the newspaper to be delivered. The ‘fallout’ was mediated by news directors, editors and producers. Yesterday we could follow any stream of opinion we liked. Links to blogs and news reports flew thick and fast across the internet as particular witticisms were ‘shared’ and retweeted countless times. The once silent majority found their voice – uncensored, unmediated and authetically theirs.

While there’s no sure-fire way to know (short of asking the office of the PM) if someone in Canberra was monitoring facebook or twitter – I suspect they were. The ‘de-friending’ of Kevin Rudd on Julia Gillard’s facebook is a hint ( the event has it’s own page).   It’s even harder to know if anything we said got through, (I’m confident Ms Gillard knows her hair colour and gender already).

I do know for certain, they couldn’t miss it.

Donna Hogan is an intern with Reading Room. You can find her on twitter, or send her an email.