How Twitter lets politicians route around the media

The rise of social media has had a number of disruptive effects on the traditional media industry, but one of the most powerful aspects of this “democratization of distribution” is how it allows the sources of news — everyone from celebrities to eye-witnesses at important events — to publish their thoughts and reach a large audience directly, without any help from the mainstream media. Twitter provides politicians with ways of routing around the traditional media channels and getting their message out directly — just as it allowed dissidents in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world to express themselves and be heard far and wide. The directness of the medium is transformative.