Thursday, 31 March 2011

Election birdies, tweets and chicks

Well, there aren't many 'birds', in that women haven't stepped up in the way some would like. I can't blame women. I know, in the 80's when I entered the work force with 3 young children, there was pressure to perform, juggle long hours, and family. It wasn't something I wanted to undertake. There was pressure in the 70s, for we women teachers to take on positions of added responsibility: consultants, principals, and yet little support to manage a home life and a work life. Principals have meetings at all hours, as do the politicians.

According to Equal Voice...

  • At the election call, there were 68 women in the House of Commons, or 22 percent, putting Canada in 52nd place according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union which ranks countries by the number of women in their national legislatures.

Only the Bloc Quebecois is running more than one third women, approximately 36 percent, in competitive ridings.  The New Democrats and Liberals are nearly on par with close to 30 percent and 27 percent women, respectively, in potentially winnable seats for their parties.  The Conservatives have nominated 36 women (20 percent) in their most competitive 179 ridings.

24% of the Conservative candidates so far are women, 
33 per cent of Liberals, 
38 per cent of NDP, 
32 per cent of Bloc Québécois 
30 per cent of Green Party candidates.




I am fascinated with the way Twitter has changed the information instantly available on Twitter, and the 'net. Also fascinated with the way the print, electronic media are able to follow what is going on.
I recently wrote: Election tweets funny to facetious
It's well worth the price of admission.

Two Twitter solitudes in federal election



OTTAWA — Online buzz around the Canadian election is looking like a unilingual debate -- with French-language posts accounting for only about two per cent of election-related messages on the Twitter site. The Canadian Press analysis, done with digital affairs strategist Mark Blevis, suggest close to 30,000 messages have flashed around the microblogging site since the campaign began.

About 4.5 million Canadians use Twitter.
Overhead vulture buzzes
in both official languages
predator/prey conversation
on-line lurkers
The analysis, which is being conducted for The Canadian Press throughout the federal campaign, only measures messages stamped with so-called "hashtags" -- such as #fed2011(mostly French) and #elxn41 -- that allow Twitter users to identify their tweets as election-related.

[See also, #cdnpoli.]

watching from the trees!

1 comment:

Sallie (FullTime-Life) said...

Hi Jenn -- I am in awe of the way you keep up with technology! I think I kind of stopped at 'BLOG'...I'm on Facebook, but seldom remember to go there (my granddaughter started me in on it) and Twitter remains a place I've never ventured. (And yet I still have a number of friends who have never sat down in front of a computer.)

I do understand how instant communication is changing the political landscape however, in North America and elsewhere....

On the rest of your post(s) -- the birds are wonderful. Looks like spring.