The Labour Party have announced that Kerry will be their New Media Campaigns Spokesperson with the responsibility of encouraging MPs and others to use new media as a form of direct engagement with voters. Kerry is frequent
blogger and
tweeter and uses these social networking sites to communicate directly with her constituents.
Speaking about the importance of new media in politics in an interview with
Labourlist she said:
“Voters will increasingly be searching the web to find out what we think about the issues, what we’ve actually been doing in the locality and looking to see what we sound like.
“Rather than being something completely new, campaigning using new media is simply doing what we’ve always done in a new setting – and rather than replacing traditional ways of doing things, it’s about making traditional campaigning methods even more effective.”
The appointment, which has led to Kerry being dubbed 'the "Twitter tsar", comes following the recent study conducted by the Independent newspaper which declared Kerry the most influential politician on Twitter.