This article raises an interesting question: at what point does the "value" of digital publishing lie not so much in the content that is published, but in the medium through which such content is published?
Put another way, which is more substantive: the actual tweets that people write with the hashtag #dontdoublemyrate (the "content"), or the general fact that there exists a Twitter account with the hashtag #dontdoublemyrate (the "medium of publishing")?
To complicate things even further: can the hashtag #dontdoublemyrate simultaneously reflect both the medium of publishing (i.e. the Twitter account, itself) and the underlying content (that being the actual text, "dont double my rate")?
The bully pulpit has a new kind of altar call: “Tweet them. We’ve got a hashtag. Here’s the hashtag for you to tweet them: #dontdoublemyrate.”
President Obama repeated that Twitter hashtag twice more during a Tuesday speech opposing an increase in student loan interest rates. For good measure, he even had his Chapel Hill, N.C., audience chant it back to him.