As part of our effort to report on social media trends, tools, and technology, we will be periodically recognizing politicians, candidates, and political organizations who are utilizing social media in effective and creative ways. 

Name: Tumblr’s “Tumbling the Conventions”

Social Media Stats: In just three days, the Tumblr has managed to cultivate an active and participatory following, with their introductory posts receiving over a thousand likes. 

Quote:

Our purpose is not to compete with traditional newsgathering operations—there are tons of professional journalists and reputable news orgs to follow on Tumblr already (check out the Politics & News Spotlights if you haven’t already). Instead, this site is a platform for a unique Tumblr-ish take on the proceedings, one that can be at once substantive and silly, relevant and irreverent.

– Liba answering a question posted by Anonymous

Why it made the cut:

Unrelated to any sort of gymnastics, the act of “Tumbling” with a capital “T” is used to describe an action common on the social media website Tumblr. For those of you unfamiliar with the site, Tumblr is an up and coming microblogging platform that allows people to easily create a blog to publicize, create, and chronicle.

The site’s social networking aspect is that users can engage with others by following, reblogging, liking, commenting, or asking questions. In the name of openness, you cannot put your Tumblr profile on private, although you can, if necessary, block someone. Another open aspect of the site is that you don’t need an account to view a user’s Tumblr.

“Tumbling the Conventions” brought to us by Tumblr was mentioned earlier on the Social Ballot, but we feel it deserves a spot in this week's "Social Spotlight" for the initiative this social media site is taking in the realm of politics. Often known for breeding gifs, the site has the potential to chronicle the more humorous side of politics, while maintaining its ability to highlight concrete issues when necessary. In the mere three days it has been up and running, the blog has posted a respectable amount of videos, quotes, excerpts, links, answers to questions, gifs, and articles in all aspects involving the Republican and Democratic conventions.

The Tumblr is best utilized by looking at the feed of posts on the homepage, but you can also narrow down your search with the specifically geared feeds labeled in the top of the page with the hashtags:

• #Obama (although as of now, there is not much on this feed)
• #Romney
• #DNC
• #RNC

The question of unbiased or non-partisan coverage of the convention is addressed by one of the contributors, who says “We did not set a quota along political party lines, nor ask folks directly about their party affiliations. Some bloggers’ political leanings may come through in their posts—we do not expect them to be neutral in a traditional journalistic sense—but they should not be polemical or use this platform to bolster a pre-existing agenda.”