Government Tweets

White house and administration officials are increasingly communicating through the social networking site Twitter. Twitter is operating as a Web-based clearinghouse for public statements on weighty subjects and the mundane. Twitter is similar to a bulletin board where anyone can post short notes and you can choose to see other people's notes by choosing to "follow" their account. White house pres secretary Robert Gibbs and his deputy Bill Burton are both now sharing news in Twitter messages. 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. Twitter 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.
This Twitter craze is just another example of how the Obama Administration has used the internet during their campaign and first years in the office. I think that Obama was smart to start using social networking sites to deliver news. I personally follow President Obama on Twitter and on Facebook. By using social networking sites Obama is able to reach the younger crowd. I never seem to find the time to read the newspaper but when I am on the computer and a message pops up from President Obama that is explaining what is going on in the White House I feel that it is more relative to my life. By using the media (social networking sites) Obama has been able to reach out to those who may not usually follow the news (well he got me at least.)