Rupert Murdoch’s tweets: Another show of his political bias

The world we live in is shaped by a media machine that controls what we read in the papers, watch on TV, and hear on the radio, it even controls the advertising we we are exposed to. It’s a very powerful machine and one of the biggest operators of that machine is mogul Rupert Murdoch.

As if that wasn’t enough, it could be argued that Murdoch even feeds the journalists who provide the content for those outlets.

Rupert Murdoch loves to tweet. The News Corp executive chairman recently tweeted a series of his thoughts about Labor’s problem with unions, his ideas on the need for a free trade agreement with China, his musings about the deadlocked Senate that is making Australia “ungovernable”, and his observations about the Great Barrier Reef .

He tweets about the US

With 500 days left, POTUS right to look at criminal justice system. Let’s see what he proposes.

— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) September 7, 2015

  He tweets about the UK

UK right to divert foreign aid money to refugee relief, although all numbers probably far too low.

— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) September 7, 2015

He tweets about Australia

In spite of some blind spots, Abbott far the best alternative. Principled and a fighter.

— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) September 3, 2015

Rupert Murdoch loves tweeting, but why? Is it yet another way of controlling what we consume, and the way we think?

He’s head of News Corp and 21st Century Fox, he has many, many outlets for his thoughts, ideas, and pronouncements. He’s like water– he can get everywhere. He has access to everyone he wants to be heard by.

Those of us who use Twitter do so to express ourselves, but we don’t have a large proportion of the world’s media to hold forth in and on.

Murdoch has 610,000 followers and only follows a mix of 123 people and organisations. Most of those he follows are news outlets with the addition of a few more surprising tweeters like TV’s motoring expert Jeremy Clarkson and food critic Jay Rayner.

In a recent article The Conversation asked about Murdoch’s use of Twitter and attempted to answer the question about what it reveals about the man behind the tweets.

The articles conclusion was that “Murdoch’s use of Twitter may be far more revealing on a personal and sentimental level than has previously been recognised”. So is Twitter where Murdoch forms our thoughts and views without the intervention of a third party?

Do you think Rupert Murdoch has too much influence over what we read in the papers, watch on TV and hear on the radio?