All posts in Interviews

"Twitter is the perfect vehicle to express rage, or people's outrage at other people's rage, and nothing stirs tweeters more than "very polarising personalities", according to Paul Armstrong, a social media consultant at Digital Orange. "When it comes to well-known figures, especially controversial figures, everyone feels they can weigh in and have a personal opinion," he says. With death, there is also a phenomenon, particularly on Twitter, of people wanting to be the first to report it, he says. Of course, Margaret Thatcher's death wasn't the first to spark a Twitter frenzy. Michael Jackson's death was "stratospheric" and Amy Winehouse was huge too, Armstrong says. What was unusual in Lady Thatcher's case was the vitriol."