World Leaders on Twitter - Top10 Rankings

Research Note: World Leader Rankings on Twitter August 2011 2 T World Leaders On Twitter How heads of state are engaging their citizens on the World Wide Web oday, enlightened governments and their leaders are taking up social media to connect with constituents at home and abroad. Governments are turning more and more to social media to put a “face” on government and to express political views and agendas. Who is helping to make sense of the new political domain? The Digital Policy Council (DPC) research continues to provide analyses on government leaders and institutions of government employing social media outlets to discover how they govern and connect with their citizenry. This research note provides an update to the ranking of heads of state engaged on the social media website Twitter. The DPC has been tracking this activity since 2009, issuing its first report Real Leaders Tweet in Feb 2010 and its second World Leaders on Twitter: Ranking Report in October 2010. Both examined how heads of state around the world are using the World Wide Web to engage their citizens. Updates to World Rankings Joining the revolutionary wave In 2010 the DPC recorded a strong movement towards open government, as leaders began aggressively pursuing social media channels as a new type of direct communication with their citizens and the global community. Analyses as of August 2011 reveals that 42%, or two out of five heads of state, are at present on the social media site Twitter. A total of 69 world leaders out of 164 countries have accounts on Twitter set up in their personal name or through an official government office. In 2010 only 33 out of 163 countries were using Twitter. The new figures represent over a 100% increase in the number of heads of state and national governments on Twitter from 2010. Last year the idea of governments to openly engage their citizens and the global community directly was brought to the forefront, with President Obama‟s open government directive and the UK, Australia, and Japan following suit. However, in 2011, internet political activism ignited more rapidly than the open government movement. This trend has begun to cause some retrenchment of the movement towards open government. During the pro-democracy uprisings that swept the Middle East and North Africa, now known as the Arab Spring, demonstrators openly acknowledged the role of digital media as a fundamental infrastructure for their work.