Insider Outside: Freedoms and Limitations in the Twitter Communications of the United Kingdom’s All Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees

The All Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees occupies a position outside the official legislative system of the United Kingdom, but inside a lobbying network. This gives it a unique place in terms of communicating on behalf of refugees and refugee causes. The Group’s Twitter feed shows that its language is different to that of campaigning organisations outside Parliament and is constrained by procedure, parliamentary practice and the political reality of a party-based environment. Aimed at Parliamentarians, the feed is used to support and promote causes and specific policy proposals. It plays a role in reporting what is going on in Parliament and supports and builds alliances with other organisations inside and outside the system. The feed’s content follows the primary information-providing objective. It could however make that information of more use to recipients, by changing the way in which some of that information is presented.