Social Media town halls
Hosting town halls through social media is becoming more and more common as politicians realize it’s a convenient way to connect with their constituents. Through these town halls, politicians make opening remarks through text or video and accept questions as they would a traditional town hall. To see a Facebook town hall in action, you can visit Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s Facebook page tonight to see how it goes down.
Washington (CNN) - Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty will host his first “Facebook Town Hall” meeting Wednesday, focusing on the 2010 elections. The governor will log on to his Facebook account, deliver opening remarks and then field reaction and questions about how Republicans can organize around the 2010 elections.
“Gov. Pawlenty wants to use the latest technology and social networking tools to connect with more Americans and talk about the issues facing our country,” Pawlenty spokesman Alex Conant said in an e-mail. “This will be like a regular town hall, except we’ll be able to take questions from around the country thanks to new online tools.”
The Facebook Town Hall is part of a concerted effort Pawlenty, who is considering a run for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination, is making to reach out to the online community. During the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington last month, Pawlenty met with bloggers during a special happy hour and has been active on numerous social networks including Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. On Facebook, Pawlenty has over 31,000 fans following him.
Hosting a Facebook Town Hall is becoming increasingly more common. A similar event was hosted by Rep. Joe Wilson in January moments after President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address. The Republican congressman from South Carolina, know nationwide for his “you lie” outburst directed at Obama last year during the president’s prime health care address to Congress, delivered a live video address on Facebook and then responded to questions submitted during his speech on the social network. Obama and a number of high-ranking officials in the administration have also used Facebook on numerous occasions to engage directly with users.
“Social media has encouraged unprecedented openness in politics and government and we’re eager to see this phenomenon continue,” Andrew Noyes, a spokesperson for Facebook’s Washington D.C. office, told CNN. “Web sites like Facebook have helped reconnect citizens to their leaders and vice versa. The 2008 U.S. election was a watershed moment for civic engagement and social media and 2010 is shaping up similarly.”
UK follows in Obama campaign’s footsteps
BusinessWeek discusses how UK politicans are taking a note from Obama’s 2008 campaign.
March 25 (Bloomberg) — Gordon Brown and David Cameron’s campaigns are taking a leaf out of Barack Obama’s book.
With the U.K. election, which must be held by June 6, likely to be the closest since 1974, strategists for Prime Minister Brown and Conservative leader Cameron are trying to use social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook and Google Inc.’s YouTube as effectively as U.S. President Obama did in his 2008 presidential campaign.
“For the first time in a while the campaign actually matters, therefore the media matters,” said Charlie Beckett, the director of the London School of Economics’ Polis research center. “Activists and media people look at Twitter.”
Although U.K. campaign rules make a large-scale import of the U.S. model difficult, the two parties are seeking to reach voters in new ways, including using online networking tools that were largely credited for Obama’s organizational and fundraising success.
On Facebook and Twitter, the parties link to videos, speeches and online petitions. The Conservatives outstrip the Labour Party in Facebook popularity, with 25,096 fans on the site, which links to videos on YouTube and photographs on Flickr. The Labour Party has 7,728 fans on the site, which offers wall posters, including a spoof of George Osborne, a spokesman for the Conservatives, entitled “Boy George.”
Both parties have applications for Apple Inc.’s iPhone, with the Conservative app carrying a guide on policies, a “simple mechanism for donating,” and automatic Twitter updates. The Labour app has a calendar of events and access to a “virtual phone bank” for canvassing.
Campaign Groups
“We see an incredible success level in being able to spread our message virally,” said Craig Elder, an online communities editor for the Conservatives.
Cameron’s campaign managers have hired eight people to work on the party’s digital output, compared with four at Labour. The Conservatives offer users “widget” applications for download, including one that calculates an individual’s share of the national debt.
Elder helped set up the Web site myconservatives.com, a network to organize activists based on Obama’s campaigning Web site. Local campaign groups are focused on electing specific candidates, while national ones include those opposing a third runway at Heathrow Airport or countering Labour’s plan for identification cards. About 300 groups are “moving their offline organization online,” he said.
U.S. vs U.K.
A poll for the Sun newspaper by YouGov Plc completed on March 22 put support for Cameron’s party at 36 percent and Labour at 32 percent, leaving Britain facing the possibility of its first minority government since 1974. The sample size and the margin of error in the poll were not provided.
U.K. political rules limit party spending in an election year to about 19 million pounds ($28.6 million), capping U.S.- style fundraising efforts, the LSE’s Beckett said.
“We just don’t have the same system in the U.K. of grassroots fundraising,” he said.
Social media sites are better at organizing and motivating existing backers than winning new support, strategists said.
“At the very fringe of interaction in the digital space social media tools win votes,” said Joe Rospars, Obama’s former social media chief and a founder of Blue State Digital, a campaign consulting firm in Washington. “However, the bang for your buck is serving an underserved audience, your supporters.”
During the U.K. budget announcement yesterday, over 11,000 related Twitter messages were sent, more than two every second, as Chancellor Alistair Darling spoke to lawmakers, according to the Tweetminster blog, which monitors political messages.
Social Media Campaigning
In the European elections last year, the Conservative Party got supporters to donate their Facebook status, allowing organizers to send out campaign messages to friends.
Similar approaches were used by the Obama campaign. Its Web site registered 20,000 volunteer groups with 2 million members by the time Obama was elected. Supporters watched 14 million hours of YouTube video and raised over $8 million online, by the campaign’s calculation.
One aspect of the U.S. system will emerge in the U.K. for the first time this year. Three televised debates between Brown, Cameron, and the Liberal Democrats’ Nick Clegg will be aired after pressure from broadcasters.
“You might find they will be terribly dull as they try not to make a gaffe,” said Kerry McCarthy, a Labour lawmaker who sends more Twitter messages than any member of parliament.
Even so, they will be “really important,” she said. “I would like to organize a tweet up, where everyone watches it up on the screen.”
YouTube Moments
The strategists are well aware of the dangers of putting candidates on camera. In the 2006 Virginia senatorial campaign, Republican candidate George Allen lost his election bid after a YouTube video showed him speaking to an opponent’s staffer using racially charged language.
In the U.K., candidates have found that the Internet can quickly be turned into a weapon.
A campaign Web site recently set up by the Conservatives to highlight Labour’s link to the Unite union in the British Airways Plc strike backfired when its Twitter feed was hacked, redirecting visitors to the Labour Web site.
Also, after a widely viewed poster of Cameron was found to have been airbrushed, a spoof poster Web site called mydavidcameron.com allowed users to create their own parodies of Tory advertising. One poster showed the Eton College and Oxford University-educated Cameron saying, “Some of my best friends are poor.”
“The defining moment of this election online will most likely be a YouTube moment,” the Conservatives’ Elder said. “The most watched video, the most impactful video at the election is going to be the one that the candidate wished was never made.”
–Editors: Vidya Root, Simon Thiel.
when it comes to health care, Facebook is part social media, part political forum
Here’s an article from the Tampa Tribune on Facebook’s role in political debate among the American public.
That kid who popped you with rubber bands in fourth grade, now the avid Glenn Beck fan, normally abides peacefully, post by post, with your professor of feminist theory.
Everybody’s a friend on Facebook.
But opinion on perhaps the most politically charged issue since social media began – the healthcare bill – is bleeding into sites normally reserved for photos of babies and Farmville updates.
Not everyone is happy about that.
“I don’t think Facebook is the place for politics,” says David Aman of Plant City. “It’s more of a friendship thing. It’s too easy to be misunderstood.”
Generations raised never to speak about religion and politics in polite company are finding such taboo topics mixed in with run-of-the-mill personal updates.
Conservatives may find it offensive when they are asked to join a new Facebook group to send talk show pundit Rush Limbaugh to Costa Rica, where he facetiously said he’d move if the controversial bill passed. Liberals bristle when friends blast “Obamacare.”
Kelli Burns, an assistant professor of mass communications at the University of South Florida and an expert on social media, says she first began seeing the creep of politics into social sites during the last presidential election.
But the rabid debate online over the House-approved healthcare bill is the strongest sign yet that social media is taking a turn for the political.
People, as usual, are searching for validation, says Burns, author of “Celeb 2.0: How Social Media Foster Our Fascination with Popular Culture.”
“If people like you comment on your posts, you have worth,” she says. “People are willing to risk criticism to find that.”
Lorraine Margeson of St. Petersburg is a strong supporter of the healthcare bill and isn’t afraid to let her Facebook friends know it.
“I talk politics all the time,” she says. “I don’t have problems at all with civility, as folks know better than to go there with me. I don’t talk politics about anything that I am not thoroughly familiar with, and I can counter an argument with indisputable facts. I am never rude.”
Jennifer Danison, who is majoring in architecture at USF, says she enjoys reading a lively debate on Facebook, as long as everyone remains civil and ready to argue their sides with intelligence.
“A lot of my peers have touched on the bill, and I accept their views,” says Danison, whose family is more conservative than her friends. “That’s the point of social networking – sharing your beliefs and what you stand for.”
She also says she learns from the discussions.
“I don’t keep up with politics or watch the news, so if my friends are talking about something on Facebook, I’ll go look it up.”
The downside, says Burns, is that some people may believe they’ve fulfilled their civic duty if they comment online.
“You don’t have to go to too much trouble,” she says. “But will they then take the next step and contact their senators? So I’m not sure that’s a good thing.”
If someone is too offensive, Facebook provides remedies. By clicking on the “hide” icon to the right of a post, incoming messages can be blocked. And if a Facebook friend is becoming foe, there’s always the option to block that person altogether.
Twitter takes on health care reform
There’s a lesson to be learned from yesterday’s Twitter discussion on a new statement from the Congressional Budget Office on health care reform. For our purposes, the content of the statement doesn’t matter nearly as much as Republic Mike Pence’s response to it. Somebody forgot to do their fact-checking, and Twitterers weren’t having it. The article below elaborates.
Fun “How the World Works” item in Salon on how the Twittersphere went berserk with CBO scores yesterday. Andrew Leonard writes:
You know you are living in a strange universe when the keyword “CBO” — the abbreviation for Congressional Budget Office — becomes so popular on Twitter that sleazy porn outfits like AdultFriendFinder incorporate the acronym into their tweet spam to drum up business. Call me squeamish, but I find it a little off-putting to have geeky arguments about the budgetary implications of new health care legislation interrupted by nonsense tweets attached to pictures of genitalia in compromising positions. It’s yucky.
There were also hundreds of tweets and countertweets (or counterfactual tweets?) when House Republican Mike Pence asserted via Twitter that the CBO was wrong about Medicare costs ever since the beginning. The problem: there was no CBO when Medicare had its beginning (in 1965). Who knew that America would have so many comedians familiar with the CBO. (Example: @samseder CBO completely underestimated cost of Columbus journey to America.)
Leonard concluded on a more serious note: “The battle over health care reform has fully penetrated the consciousness of the United States, whether expressed out on the street or in the voting booth or via a Twitter riff. History is being made, and we know it.”
Which world leaders are using Twitter?
A new study called “Real Leaders Tweet” found 15 percent of the world’s countries, or 24 of 163, have government leaders on Twitter. Approximately 84 percent of those countries are democratic and stable. The study also noted that countries facing political instability are likely to view social media as a threat.
Huffington Post highlighted 15 world leaders using Twitter. They are:
Latvia Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis – 1,700 followers
Philippines President Gloria Arroyo – 2,400 followers
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – 2,800 followers
Denmark Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen – 5,000 followers
New Zealand Prime Minister John Key – 8,000 followers
Malaysia Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak – 12,000 followers
Norway Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg – 15,000 followers
Canada Prime Minister Stephen Harper – 48,000 followers
Chile President Sebastian Pinera – 74,000 followers
UAE Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammad Al Maktoum – 330,000 followers
Japan Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama – 403,000 followers
Australia Prime Minister Kevin Rudd – 918,000 followers
Jordan Queen Rania Al Abdullah – 1.2 million followers
U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown – 1.7 million followers
U.S. President Barack Obama – 3.4 million followers
Twitter rumor & fake account hit Australian politics
A recent social media hoax in Australia sent a controversial rumor around Twitter. The incident (described below) makes two things evident:
1. If you don’t claim your own social media space as a public figure, someone else will.
Create an official account. Even if it only features brief news updates, an official account lets the public and media know what messages come from you and which are ugly rumors. Stop misinformation before it spreads.
2. Create a social media strategy.
The article below points out using social media for the sake of using social media doesn’t proactively help you. While the first tip here deal with risk management, real benefits are seen when social media is used with purpose.
Either way, your voters are there. The media is there. At a minimum, you need to be there too.
One evening, a couple of weeks ago, the Twittersphere went into a frenzy as the following 82 characters appeared on computer and iPhone screens across the country:
Mr Rudd needs to rule out US-style death panels from his health care “reform” plan
The Twitterer responsible for the tweet was @BronwynBishopMP, a user whose profile features an official photograph of Ms Bishop and a comprehensive archive of serious, sober tweets related to her portfolio. The user’s 500+ followers (this writer included) had until that point not doubted for a moment that @BronwynBishopMP was the real deal; the account bore none of the classic hallmarks of other Twitter fakes such as comedy avatars or sarcastic tweets.
“Death panels!” screamed Twitter in response to those 82 characters, gobsmacked (but not entirely surprised) that an opposition MP in Australia had pulled out the strawman defence used by opponents of proposed US healthcare reforms. It was a beautiful moment for the online political discussion community which loves nothing more than a bit of madness in their political thrust and parry.
For the next thirty minutes mainstream journalists with Twitter accounts flailed about, desperately seeking proof or otherwise that the account was genuine, fingers hovering over the publish button on hastily-written death panel articles; the phone lines were apparently jammed at Bronwyn Bishop’s Canberra office. Eventually, journalist Lyndal Curtis got through to Bishop’s staff and announced to a breathless online network that @BronwynBishopMP was indeed fake – the real BB does not possess a Twitter account.
Looking back through the fake’s archives there is only one small clue that points towards impersonation, probably laid quite purposefully by the extremely patient faker:
One of the first issues I want to pursue is one that gets little media attention – the problem of identity theft amongst senior Australians
Overall it’s pretty nice work, you gotta admit.
It’s only one small and isolated incident, but a handy pointer to this year’s likely political and social media epicentre. Twitter looks like being the hot social media tool of the 2010 federal election, picking up where YouTube left off in 2007. In the first half of that year, as the election approached, every serving or prospective politician signed up an account, proudly displayed a YouTube graphic on their websites, and did … something. Social media efforts back then ranged from stiff and sickening videos from Prime ministerial incumbent John Howard and challenger Kevin Rudd, to some truly bizarre efforts from obscure Senate hopefuls such as Stewart “hammer the screw” Glass.
But it’s highly doubtful that any of the enthusiastic YouTube stuff swung more than a handful of votes, if it swung a single vote at all. If anything, electioneering YouTube videos did nothing more than provide fodder for journalists looking for something to report and rusted-on political bloggers looking for something to take the piss out of. When social media is used for its own sake there is unlikely to be any real benefit for the user.
Coming back to the future, it’s also highly doubtful that the class of 2010’s Twitter efforts will be any more successful at changing votes. While social media – if used cleverly – is probably an effective medium for organising and mobilising existing support, its effectiveness in influencing support is less clear.
Unfortunately, at this time there’s no real way of making assessments about social media’s impact on political outcomes beyond broad, anecdotal observations. Political analyst Possum Comitatus says the impact probably won’t be properly measurable until after this year’s poll because social media didn’t hit a critical mass of users until about 2008. But based on social media’s larger role in American politics, Possum reckons it so far seems to have potential in the areas of small donor fundraising and debunking of myths propagated by political opponents. At the most recent Presidential election, social media “definitely succeeded in the first,” says Possum, while efforts at debunking myths were “pretty much a dismal failure.”
Back here in Australia we are starting to see a preview of how Twitter might be used in the lead up to this year’s federal election. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is a reasonably prolific tweeter who (between he and his team) pumps out a steady stream of carefully-crafted on-message units of spin, interrupted very occasionally by an insight into the Rudd family’s cinema preferences. Opposition leader Tony Abbott maintains a Twitter account (as does his penis, strangely enough), although his tweets are sparse and tentative. There are a few dozen other politicians active on Twitter but, by-and-large, their efforts are fairly dry and uninspiring.
It’s a bit of a shame, really, because through Twitter a politician has a chance to communicate directly with their supporters and potential supporters, transmitting their message while revealing a little bit of the human personality behind the grey exterior that often dominates their public image. This, combined with the interactivity built into the core of social media, can maximise the connection voters might feel with politicians and possibly influence votes. But just like in 2007, simply putting a Twitter badge on your website and making a few cursory and unidirectional efforts at using the tool will result in precisely zero impact on your electoral prospects.
We’ll have to wait and see how it all pans out, of course, but in the meantime we simply must give a special mention to Victorian state opposition leader Ted Baillieu who last week went above and beyond the call of political duty, taking time out from electioneering to give storm and building advice to the Twitterers of Melbourne:
With extreme and heavy rainfalls on unattended construction sites over 2-3 days, exposed foundations may need extra attention and repair
Good on ya, Ted.
If you work for the city… don’t refer to its residents as ‘the ignorant masses’
Some Flagstaff, AZ residents are calling for the resignation of a city building official after he referred to members of the Flagstaff community as “the ignorant masses” on Facebook.
Oy.
Facebook is a very public place. Even if it weren’t, as we pointed out in our earlier Rahm post, the most private of comments can run rampant now thanks to social media. You have to watch what you say.
One good thing coming out of this social media ‘whoops’ is the city of Flagstaff recognizing the need for a social media policy. A social media policy can help whether defensive or assertive in nature. Some entities may choose to develop a policy that allows for experimentation or above-and-beyond use of social media to create awareness and build goodwill. Others may simply use it as a risk management tool by reminding employees how the brand is to be treated when they’re using social media. Whatever your reason, a social media policy provides consistency, direction, and a common goal for your campaign, city, or other official entity.
Here’s an article from the Arizona Daily Sun about the aforementioned incident:
A casual comment on Facebook has led to the early retirement of a top city of Flagstaff building department employee and caused city officials to consider adopting a social media policy for its 800 employees.
Several members of the community, including one councilmember, were outraged when they learned Building Official Ed Larsen apparently referred to local residents as “the ignorant masses” in response to a coworker’s comment on the popular social media site.
The reference was made by Larsen after business hours last Friday in reference to the progress of a citizen advisory committee on a rewrite of the Flagstaff Regional Plan.
Sunnyside resident Joe Ray, who complained to the Flagstaff City Council on Tuesday night, called for Larsen’s resignation and the reassignment of the other city staffer involved in post, Comprehensive Planning Manager Bob Caravona. Caravona is the top city staffer involved with the rewrite for the regional plan.
TAINTED REPUTATION
City officials did not comment on the results of an investigation of the comments made by Larsen and Caravona on Facebook. City Manager Kevin Burke did say on Thursday the city would need to work on rebuilding its tainted reputation in the eyes of the public.
“I deeply regret the recent employee comments that have brought doubt and concern about the public process and the value of our citizens involved with their local government,” Burke said. “Although we cannot comment on specific employee personnel issues, I commit to our citizens and community that we will work hard to rebuild the trust that has been damaged.”
Councilmember Coral Evans agreed with Burke but said he should have moved the long-range planner to another project.
“I think we as the city will need to rebuild the trust of the citizens after this incident,” she said. “But I think it would be appropriate to reassign Bob to get another planner who is not tainted.”
City officials noted that the building department, which has seen a series of layoffs over the last two years, couldn’t afford to move staffers to different projects. One of the prime candidates to replace Caravona would be Roger Eastman, who is already heading up a massive rewrite of the city’s land development code.
Councilmember Karla Brewster disagreed with Evans, saying the council has no role in micro-managing employees.
“It is not our job to deal with those issues and that’s why we hire Kevin (Burke),” Brewster said.
TWO-PAGE APOLOGY
Larsen did release a two-page apology and explanation of his Facebook comment the following Monday.
He insisted the term “the ignorant masses” was not meant to be derogatory but a reference to the average resident who is not intimately familiar with city programs and politics.
“Not everyone has the advantage of a computer monitor to review every detail and therefore often find themselves on the receiving end of policies, ordinances and directives without knowing why ‘the City did that,’ hence, from my background, those left uniformed are sometimes called the ‘ignorant masses,’” Larsen wrote. “Not meant to offend, but to describe a group that doesn’t get the information that they might need for their daily lives.”
Larsen, reached by phone on Thursday, declined to comment further on the Facebook posting.
Caravona also released a brief statement on Thursday.
“I apologize if any comments posted on social media pages brought into question my views toward the CAC and the public. I would ask citizens to allow me to prove my commitment to their voice in their Regional Plan by attending and participating in the process,” Caravona offered.
NEW POLICY ON USING SOCIAL MEDIA
In light of the controversy, the city is also considering establishing a social media policy that would likely span various social media sites, not just Facebook.
Burke said he would work with employees, human resources personnel and information technology specialists to gather information on the use of social media by city employees to gauge whether the city needs to establish a social media policy.
City employees already sign a policy governing computer and Internet use.
With Larsen retiring, Mike Scheu is expected to take over Larsen’s position, effective immediately.
Larsen, who had previously planned to retire in May, has moved up his retirement to April 2. He will train Scheu over the next three weeks, city officials said.
Joe Ferguson can be reached at jferguson@azdailysun.com or (928) 556-2253.
Transcript from Facebook
Edwin Larsen: The wind is blowing and Bob “The Planner Dude” and Kim (Ole McDonald’s farm wife) are getting ready for an exciting afternoon of CAC. Maybe they are going to get another whole chapter written…. (Friday, 2:44 p.m.)
Bob Caravona: Amazingly, they got through the agenda and made decisions — some not happy. (Friday, 6:37 p.m.)
Edwin Larsen: Good, we don’t want everyone to be happy. Planner Guy has once again proved that the Staff will win in the end …. the ignorant masses will just exist … long live the Regional Planners…. (Friday, 6:42 p.m.)
The Pentagon’s jumping on the social media bandwagon.
The Pentagon non-classified network will now allow access to social media sites. The agency’s change of heart came after the realization that such sites could be used to better communicate with the public.
Military personnel are still expected to keep sensitive information under wraps and offline (in order to avoid serious blunders such as last week’s Israeli army fiasco).
Laylina Productions offers the full scoop:
In a reversal of previous policies, the Department of Defense recently decided to allow the use of social networks, reports CNET News. The new guidelines will allow for the Pentagon’s non-classified network to access social media tools such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and blogs, although personnel are still expected to exercise caution and discretion.
The DoD announced in a press release that it now recognizes the role new media could play in facilitating communication between the Pentagon and the general public, although officials will “continue to defend against malicious activity on military information networks.” However, sites containing ethically questionable content, such as pornography or hate crimes, will still be banned.
The new policy does not allow for blanket access to all social media at any time, Reuters explains. Commanders will still have the authority to “temporarily limit” internet access prior to a major military operation, or if bandwidth is in short supply.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense David Wennergren told Reuters that the DoD’s new goal is to educate their workforce on what information is allowed to be disseminated beyond military personnel.
“There are 10,000 ways [besides social media] people could still compromise a mission,” Wennergren told the wire service. “So part of this is about having a trained workforce that is savvy in how you operate in the information age.”
David Meerman Scott claims on The Huffington Post that the decision pushes the DoD “far out in front” of many American corporations. He explains that many companies view social media as a security threat or drain on productivity, when in fact they “need to understand that this is the way people communicate in 2010.”
Scott also stresses that social media is already an “important force” in military public affairs departments, citing a statement an Air Force captain heading Air Force communications in Haiti: “We’re not launching missiles, we’re launching ideas.”
Karen Wilkinson at Government Technology highlights that the policy “appears to complement the Obama administration’s Open Government Directive,” which emphasizes government transparency.
The DoD senior strategist for emerging media, Jack Holt, told Government Technology that the Pentagon is now trying to view the internet as “a field to be maneuvered,” rather than staying behind a virtual “fortress” and “sticking our head in the sand.”
But Nathan Hodge of the ‘Danger Room’ blog at Wired remains skeptical of the new policy. He refers to an anonymous Air Force network administrator who commented he had to read about the policy shift on the Danger Room, “not through a DoD website.”
Hodge goes on to say that he has received numerous complaints and alerts from readers who claim that they are still unable to access some social media sites. “Those are just a few examples of the yawning gap between theory and practice when it comes to the military’s use of Web 2.0,” he writes.
However, in a different post at Wired, Nathan Hodge highlights a smartphone for Army personnel that could “access everything from technical manuals and maintenance records to maps and cultural intelligence.” The device could also include GPS and tools to help soldiers analyze terrain.
Hodge says the smartphones are part of a Defense project called “Connecting Soldiers to Digital Applications,” which is still in the trial phase at Fort Bliss in Texas. Other projects underway include a contest to develop mobile and web applications that could be useful to soldiers, and developing new controllers for unmanned vehicles.
Coinciding with the DoD’s social media announcement, an embarrassing incident occurred within the Israeli military, reports Reuters. Israel was forced to abandon a raid in the Palestinian territories “after a soldier posted details, including time and place,” on Facebook. Some cite this incident as an argument against the expansion of internet access in the US military.
more on the White House & Twitter
It seems like the White House’s use of Twitter is constantly in the news. Here’s the latest from Associated Press.
If you’re PressSec — White House press secretary Robert Gibbs’ username on Twitter — you join the powerful social media platform and push your message across the Internet, 140 characters at a time.
Blending behind-the-scenes nuggets with a defense of President Barack Obama’s record, White House and administration officials increasingly are communicating through Twitter.
The popular social network is operating as a Web-based clearinghouse for public statements on weighty subjects (the federal budget) and the mundane (personal grocery lists). It’s similar to a bulletin board where anyone can post short notes and users cull the pieces they see by choosing to “follow” individuals’ account.
Forget press releases. Gibbs and his deputy, Bill Burton, are now sharing news in Twitter messages. So far 35,000 people have signed up to follow Gibbs and more than 6,000 are tracking Burton. Those two officials have a ways to go to catch actor Ashton Kutcher and his 4.6 million followers.
“Wow unreal game… POTUS watched OT in his office right off the Oval Office — all of us are so proud of our great team,” Gibbs tweeted during the men’s Olympic hockey finals last Sunday, when the Americans lost the gold medal game to Canada in overtime. POTUS, of course, is the acronym for president of the United States.
Burton offered a midgame, inside-the-Beltway joke: “Tied! White House response, on bgnd, from a low- to midlevel administration official: USA! USA! USA!” (He was referring to a favorite administration request when talking to the press “on background” means the official won’t be identified publicly.) After the U.S. loss, Burton noted that America still led the overall medal race.
These are hardly the pronouncements one expects from the president’s top spokesmen. But as Obama’s team continues an online strategy set in place during the campaign and imported to Pennsylvania Avenue, it seems only natural that they would make it a piece of a broader communications plan that extends across the government.
U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice tweets about diplomacy, Assistant Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela tweets about the Western Hemisphere and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke tweets about trade.
“Welcome back, furloughed DOTers!” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood tweeted recently to his employees.
With a news cycle now measured in seconds rather than days, administration officials recognize they must embrace this rapid pace and use the same tactics as the critics who assail them and the reporters who cover them. Gibbs, who is Obama’s chief defender, has signaled that the White House won’t cede any ground online.
Twitter began four years ago as a microblogging site to follow the activities of celebrities such as Lance Armstrong, the bicycling champion whose account was the first one Gibbs followed.
Since then, it has proved to be a powerful tool for mobilizing causes and protest movements by allowing people to use common phrases to link subjects by theme. In Washington, that translates into hashtags — key words preceded by the symbol for a pound sign — such as (pound sign)whitehouse or (pound sign)gop that users key in to find connected nuggets.
“There’s a whole language, obviously, and typing with numbers and symbols that has evaded me,” Gibbs said. “I’m sure my son could teach me that far better than I could pick it up.”
Twitter also lets users communicate directly with each other, either through public messages using (at) symbols or through private messages. In many ways, it can be used as an e-mail system in which messages are completely public but limited to just 140 letters, numbers or symbols.
Obama’s aides are fast students of Twitter’s etiquette and uses. The White House announced Obama’s first news conference on Twitter last year. Burton has been known to clarify Gibbs’ comments while Gibbs is still speaking from the White House podium. Officials share with their followers news reports the White House views as positive.
Burton explained — in a tweet, no less — the approach.
“(At)PressSec is using this new medium in a way that gets information out quickly and effectively tracks what is on the minds of our press corps,” he responded to a tweet from this reporter, PElliottAP.
Obama’s campaign team built an Internet-based direct engagement model to win the White House and adapted the plan once in Washington. At the Democratic National Committee, aides continue to update the political BarackObama account, which operates separately from the White House tweets. Those are treated as formal communications and will be filed away as part of the presidential archive along with legal memos and policy documents.
In tandem with their quick bursts of information on Twitter, the online White House routinely turns to its blog, Facebook page or YouTube channel where Obama now posts his weekly address.
“All of these things are basically entirely new to government, but have become a standard part of White House operations, with top White House officials recognizing their value and placing them as top priorities, giving the public equal footing in a world where, for most of history, government has had to engage and communicate with them through the press or interest groups,” White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said.
For instance, 60,000 people went to the White House Web site last fall to watch Obama speak to a joint session of Congress on health care, and one-third of them stayed on the site after it was over to talk with administration officials about the speech.
Macon Phillips, the White House new media director who tweets as macon44, said the online chat allowed officials to get “a taste of what questions the actual public had in raw form — rather than simply the questions cable news and Beltway pundits have.”
On the Net:
- White House Twitter: http://twitter.com/whitehouse
- White House Facebook: http://apps.facebook.com/whitehouselive/
- White House YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/whitehouse
Lessons from Dutch politics
The Dutch do it differently when it comes to political campaigns. They’re using social media to promote rapping politicians and to hope sex really does sell. This article helps you learn from their mistakes.
Social media are becoming more and more important in election campaigns, although only a very small percentage of the electorate actually reads, watches or hears what their political frontmen and frontwomen have to say on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or their blogs.
With only a few days to go before Wednesday’s local elections in the Netherlands, Dutch politicians are putting in their final efforts to win the support of their prospective voters. In the old days, local candidates simply handed out flyers while canvassing in the streets of their municipality, but these days, modern social media have taken the place of the oldfashioned flyer or placard.
Succesful
If you want to be a successful politician, you should at least have a Twitter account, a Facebook page, a Flickr photostream or a YouTube video page. The occasional posting on a website or a blog simply won’t do anymore — or so it seems.Only a handful
According to a report by Dutch research bureau Berenschot, almost half of the Dutch local parties are using Twitter, YouTube, Hyves (the Dutch equivalent of Facebook) and LinkedIn for this year’s campaign. But only a handful of voters are actually following them. Berenschot says only four percent of the voters regularly read or watch tweets, videos, blogs or a picture posted on Flickr.The average local political party only has two to five Twitter or Hyves followers out of every 10,000 inhabitants of the municipality they represent.
‘Talk to them’
So if these figures are so low, do local politicians actually benefit from their social media efforts? Marc Hesp, a local councillor for the conservative VVD party in the north of the Netherlands, says most politicians don’t get it: “We don’t call it social media for nothing”, he says. “It means you have to interact with your readers and listeners. Simply telling them who to vote for is not enough. You have to talk with them, listen to them”.Mr Hesp should know, as he is nominated for the “Best Local Web Politician of the Year” award, which will be announced on Monday. He currently has 55 fans on Facebook, 628 followers on Twitter and a blog which he updates almost daily.
But sometimes politicians simply get it all wrong.
Campaign song
The PvdA (Labour) party in Kampen, for instance, produced a YouTube clip in which they made an attempt to sing an uplifting campaign song. The local party quickly withdrew the video once popular Dutch guerrilla-style blog GeenStijl mocked the video. You can still see the video on the GeenStijl-website.Another local politician who displayed her singing talents – or lack thereof – in a YouTube video is VVD (Conservative) candidate Sabine Koebrugge from the northern city of Groningen. In the video, she raps her way through political topics like student housing and the local economy:
The VVD in Enschede chose a different approach to get their message across – by using a model and the age old message that sex sells. Well, the video doesn’t contain any sex, but watch out for the model taking off her winter coat. Click here to watch their video.
In the nude
Local party Student058 from Leeuwarden went a little bit further and put up election posters displaying their leader Michel Hania in the nude, with only a glass of beer hiding his private parts. “Our slogan is ‘Nothing more, nothing less’”, Mr Hania said. “And this is what we are, this is what you get. Back to the basics of life and politics”. You can see the poster here.
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