The Leaders’ Debate II

Last night’s big event was the second leaders’ debate, this time on Sky News (also available on other channels for those offended by Sky’s graphics) and this time the subject was ostensibly foreign policy. In actual fact the topics covered were spookily similar to those ITV hosted last week. The social media reaction was also similar with the large majority of live comment taking place on micromedia, perhaps unsurprisingly.

What was different this time around was that Nick Clegg was not allowed such a clear run. His success last week came, at least partially, because Brown and Cameron saw each other as the only real threats and “I agree with Nick” as a good strategy to alienate the competition. The LibDem’s poll boost after the first debate and the looming possibility of a hung parliament has made Nick Clegg a real threat to the other leaders, and consequently last night’s event was clearly three-way fight. At one point Gordon Brown’s “I agree with Nick” became “Get real, Nick!”.

These attacks should be carefully judged though. However much Clegg protests, he would be the kingmaker in a hung parliament and he’s getting even more of the attention in the twittersphere than last week. While much of this may be due to the #nickcleggsfault meme, some of the early polls show Clegg winning this debate too.

Last week, I also compared activity around the leadership debate with other topics of the day, including the volcanic ash cloud. Below you can see how those two topics trended over the last week. What I find most interesting about this chart are the sharp peaks in conversation during the debates. My search terms here include straight mentions of each of the leaders and parties, not restricted to comments directly related to the televised debates. What this chart shows is that the TV debates (old media) are directly driving mass participation on twitter (new media). Further evidence, were it needed, that this is not truly a digital election.