Gary Bivings on Digital Politics Radio- Twitter & Elected Officials: Who is Tweeting, What are They Saying
Continuing his bi-weekly appearance on the Digital Politics Radio show with Karen Jagoda, this past Tuesday Gary and Karen got into a lively discussion as to the best and worst practices, and users of Twitter and social media.
A few paraphrased highlights and the mp3 interview bellow. Next appearance: Tuesday, August 10th at 3:00pm EST.
Q: At the state and local level, What are some of the interesting patterns you have seen?
- Twitter at the Mayoral Level: Cory Booker of Newark, NJ: Very active presence, totally engaged, using it as a way to interact, reach out, ask questions, communicate and be involved in a way you don't (normally) see. Most politicians, (being) risk adverse, tell people what they are doing that day, but are not really engaged on the issues, what people are doing, responding to criticism…
- Gavin Newsom, Mayor of San Francisco- From (Speaker Pelosi’s) constituency, has 200x as many followers. Antonio Villaraigosa- Mayor of Los Angeles: 21k followers, Mike Bloomberg, NYC: 22k, Richard Daley, Chicago, 2,400, Picking up the end, Mayor Adrian Fenty of Washington DC with less than 1,000. (Gary was being generous, as Mayor Fenty are 325 total followers- TG)
Twitter Followers:
- GB: When your looking at followers, we need to take it with a grain of salt. It’s like the when people based their success on websites and the simple idea of hits. So you have to figure of the million following Booker, they really can't (all) vote or (be) influential.. It is interesting how different folks have different levels of freedom, or feel comfortable using the medium…
Adoption of Twitter and Aversion of Risk:
- GB: You wouldn’t think of Arizona as being Twitter central, both Senators have it, in the House- all 7 members of Congress have it. Arkansas is good, California and Florida are about half. Kentucky is very interesting. (Besides) Rep. Brett Guthrie, nobody seems to be using it.
KJ: We do have the footnote of Rand Paul…
- GB: In the House of Representatives: Of those who Tweet, about 1/3 of Democrats do, and 55% of Republicans tweet, with an average following of 1,500. So when you see Rand Paul with 6,000 followers, that’s not bad, doesn't compare to someone like Sarah Palin. (For a comprehensive listing, check out TweetCongress)
KJ: How important is a national following to some of these local campaigns?
- GB: It’s hard to pull apart in sense that you have to look at each individual follower to see if they are relevant, because with Twitter, you can set up anonymous accounts, and a lot of these accounts are not credible or verifiable.
- KJ: What makes a good vs. bad presence?
GB: One congressperson starts out his tweets with a quote from the scriptures, from the Old or New Testament. There are some that just start everything with a verb: Stop by historical museum, great groundhog history, I am on TV tonight, etc… Eric Cantor uses it like Cory Booker. (Cantor) is not quite as engaged, but lets you know where he stands on issues, what's going on, some inside baseball, some policy stuff, whereas most use it like a contemporary email.
Other highlights:
The Dark Side of Twitter, Tweet Storms, Andrew Breitbart vs. Shirley Sherrod, NAACP vs. Tea Party…
Gary Bivings: Twitter & Elected Officials: Who is Tweeting, What are They Saying : Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadA Recap of NDN’s Panel on Advancing Internet Freedom
On Tuesday July 20th 2010, NDN hosted a speaker panel titled Advancing Internet Freedom: Tackling Barriers to the Global Free Flow of Information. This event featured Daniel Calingaert and Anita Ramasastry two prominent authorities on the topic of internet censorship and the power of online freedom of speech. During their presentations, both presenters discussed topics ranging from mobile economic opportunities abroad to further US government regulation of internet content.
The NDN forum touched heavily upon the groundwork laid by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s January 2010 speech on internet freedom that was lauded as the first of its kind for a foreign policy decision maker. Clinton spoke about issues of international censorship over the press and individual media publishers, and warned about the “new information curtain” that is cutting off information to developing nations with totalitarian governments.
Both speakers at the “Advancing Internet Freedom” event discussed the role of domestic and foreign government in regulation and expansion of internet services – particularly as they relate to ordinary citizens. Echoing Secretary Clinton’s remark that “the world’s information infrastructure will become what we and others make of it,” Anita Ramasastry discussed the importance advocating for oppressed peoples through greater access to technology and information. Subsequently, Daniel Calingaert spoke about the rights of citizens and the importance of not accepting censorship in the name of political stability. Both speakers stressed the empowerment of citizens though the creation and sharing of content on social media and internet websites.
PdF: Let’s Talk About Text
In the world of news, Markos Moulitsas feels that his website The Daily Kos is ancient, claiming that the website is "Eight years old, or 56 in dog years, which makes it 2,000 in internet years."
Day two of PdF brought us "Rethinking Media," where the founder and publisher highlighted the buildup to war in 2002, which he called "a difficult, trying time for progressives, akin to treason" for dissent. Moulitsas said that at the time his frame of mind was steeped in frustration. His childhood included a love of news and politics, including pricey subscriptions to local Chicago newspapers at a cost to his hard-working parents.
Moulitsas detailed what he felt was a vacuum of truth and objectivity in traditional news media in the face of declining ratings and advertising shares. He felt empowered paying $8.95 for a domain name and launching The Daily Kos, a progressive blog. He explained that having the website as an outlet made him and other future bloggers change from passive sideliners to content creators, and much of it was facilitated by low-startup costs.He feels that blogging brings in people from all walks of life, creating new voices, and encouraging a new, collaborative form of media.
Moulitsas cited how even a year ago, the idea of having bloggers ask the President a question was considered unheard of, yet now is a regular occurrence. In his opinion, blogging has changed the landscape of news, where there is no difference between television, newspapers, or blogs. He noted that comments, reporting, and the delivery of video and print are now the same across the board, an amalgamation of content.
In this new era, he sees an emergence of platforms and purpose, as opposed to layout and presentation.
He prides the Daily Kos for committing themselves to polling, commissioning more than any other news organization. He wants to create a culture that doesn't assume to know what the opinion of the American public is, saying the website is moderated by the community itself, who by establishing the culture of the website give the readers ownership of the content.
One interesting fact Moulitsas mentioned: Users of his website stay for 48 minutes on average, versus 1 hour spent on the Drudge Report. He mentioned that those numbers are almost double the average for the traditional media sites.
Video from PDF is streaming live at http://personaldemocracy.com/live .
You can also keep up with the latest Tweets. Check out the PdF Twitterslurp at http://personaldemocracy.com/twitter , powered by The Bivings Group.
Event hashtag is #pdf10.
Attack of the Obama Clones Part 2: The Screenshots
Last week I wrote a post detailing ways in which the Barack Obama website design has been appropriated by other other political candidates. The post focused on specific elements of the design and how it had influenced others. For the sake of posterity, I also put together a Flickr set of the most blatant rip offs that I’ll update over time. The set is embedded below.
View full screen and click on the Show Info option to view my notes on each design.
Do you really digg your town?
Some people really dig their town, and Manor, TX is trying to tap into this passion through its crowdscouring site Manor Labs. The site has many social media features from sites like Digg. It seems fitting that its CIO Dustin Haisler, who is 23, spearheads this effort; perhaps this is what you get when you give a millennial authority. He is doing something bold. Check out the May 2010 Government Technology profile of his efforts titled "City 2.0."
Like Digg, Manor Labs enables people to vote up or down each idea, and the more popular an idea is, the more likely that the town will take action on it if it is reasonable and feasible to do so. Participants are also given "Innobucks" that they earn by contributing to the site. They can cash them in at the site’s store for privileges like the opportunity to serve as a honorary mayor for the day (complete with lunch and dinner with the mayor and city manager), a ride with the police chief in his car for an entire shift, and — my favorite — the opportunity for the town to officially name a week after the person through proclamation. It is important to give participants incentives — even if it is an ego boost like getting a week named after you, which comes at very little cost to the town. Further, I wonder how many boys between between the ages of 3 and 10 years old who are begging their parents for a ride in a police car… Very clever.
There’s little need to touch upon peddling and purchasing influence since the spirit of the effort is to encourage improving the town for everyone. 
Another advantage to this type of crowdsourcing is that it is done in a venue that promotes transparency.
As I have noted before, there are participation inequality issues. Not everyone has the ability (whether access or competency) nor the desire to participate in such an effort. What happens when the digitally savvy and excited over represent themselves? That was the case when the Utah State Legislature passed a school voucher bill back in 2007; many pundits attributed some of the success to a discussion about the bill on the Politicopia wiki set up specifically discuss political issues in Utah. After the bill’s passage, the bill was killed by a voter referendum. Thus, even though people get excited about an idea online, it does not mean that most of the other affected people agree with the direction of the discussion.
However, it is important not to throw out the baby with the bath water. Organizations that use social media to gather opinions and feedback from their constituents must acknowledge that their entire constituency likely does not use one channel of communication and participation. Thus, they must take such feedback and participation in context and solicit feedback through other means to involve a more diverse group of stakeholders. If Manor, TX does this, it likely will avoid what happened to the Utah State Legislature.