(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2012) Burford, Allison, author; Cavdar, Gamze, advisor; Betsill, Michele, committee member; Kodrich, Kris, committee member
It has been suggested by the media and scholars alike that social media might be a potential solution for problems of political participation. To test this hypothesis, this thesis examines the content of political participation by the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) as reflected in its Twitter posts for the period of January 1, 2011 - December 31, 2011. Furthermore, I compare traditional sources of political participation in the MCB (i.e. newsletters and press releases) from the years 2005 and 2011, with the political participation through Twitter. The findings indicate that political participation over social media occurs with substantially more frequency, and with a significant change in tone, while traditional participation shows very little change in tone or frequency.
