Liveblogging the NCSL Spring Forum
I'm sitting on a panel to discuss legislative technology and new media, and I've been given 15 minutes to provide a compelling argument as to why public officials should use the Internet to connect to their constituents and provide a running commentary on facing us all. Given the tight schedule, I'm going to hit the highlights and list three main points:
Immediacy
Whereas most traditional news outlets (print, tv, radio) have set times to distribute news, you can use a blog or any of the other popular social media sites to put news out there for the entire world to see as quickly as you can type it in and post it. Just in the last Arkansas legislative session, several legislators and observers used Twitter to send out news as it happened from committee rooms and from the floor of the House chamber. This allows not only those watching at home to keep up with the happenings in the Statehouse as they occur, but observers inside the Capitol only need to log on to their Blackberry to keep up with action elsewhere in the Capitol rather than trying to run from committee to committee to keep up.
And it's not just newsprint that can be used -- pictures and video can be uploaded just as quickly and easily. For example, you can take any picture and put it on the Internet within seconds:
No filters
Another benefit of putting your message out there directly to your constituents and readers is that you can say what you want without worrying how it will be interpreted in an article, column, or editorial. Sure, your audience is likely going to be much smaller than your local daily, but you can your own website to get out in front of a story. Take a story that appeared in this morning's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, for example. The newspaper published a story on the ditribution of our state's General Improvement Fund. Our Speaker of the House Robbie Wills, who runs his own great blog, posted his view hours before it appeared in print. While his readership is much smaller that the statewide circulation of the Democrat-Gazette, the political junkies do read it, and others can find Robbie's view on this particular issue if/when they use a search engine to learn more about this topic.
Transparency
Having a presence on the Internet reduces the potential criticism that can arise when your constituents aren't able to keep up with your work on their behalf, your voting record, and generally the events taking place in your office. Let's face it -- at some point, constituents are going to demand that you have some sort of online presence. An informed constituency is your friend, not your enemy. Yes, you're opening yourself up to personal attacks through comments, etc, but you're going to get that anyway. If your voters can read for themselves your reasoning behind a particular vote or position, you're more likely to win them over in the long run.
However, more than any other reason, this technology keeps you connected to your constituency -- and that's the foundation of good representation.
Whereas most traditional news outlets (print, tv, radio) have set times to distribute news, you can use a blog or any of the other popular social media sites to put news out there for the entire world to see as quickly as you can type it in and post it. Just in the last Arkansas legislative session, several legislators and observers used Twitter to send out news as it happened from committee rooms and from the floor of the House chamber. This allows not only those watching at home to keep up with the happenings in the Statehouse as they occur, but observers inside the Capitol only need to log on to their Blackberry to keep up with action elsewhere in the Capitol rather than trying to run from committee to committee to keep up.
And it's not just newsprint that can be used -- pictures and video can be uploaded just as quickly and easily. For example, you can take any picture and put it on the Internet within seconds:
Another benefit of putting your message out there directly to your constituents and readers is that you can say what you want without worrying how it will be interpreted in an article, column, or editorial. Sure, your audience is likely going to be much smaller than your local daily, but you can your own website to get out in front of a story. Take a story that appeared in this morning's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, for example. The newspaper published a story on the ditribution of our state's General Improvement Fund. Our Speaker of the House Robbie Wills, who runs his own great blog, posted his view hours before it appeared in print. While his readership is much smaller that the statewide circulation of the Democrat-Gazette, the political junkies do read it, and others can find Robbie's view on this particular issue if/when they use a search engine to learn more about this topic.
Having a presence on the Internet reduces the potential criticism that can arise when your constituents aren't able to keep up with your work on their behalf, your voting record, and generally the events taking place in your office. Let's face it -- at some point, constituents are going to demand that you have some sort of online presence. An informed constituency is your friend, not your enemy. Yes, you're opening yourself up to personal attacks through comments, etc, but you're going to get that anyway. If your voters can read for themselves your reasoning behind a particular vote or position, you're more likely to win them over in the long run.
However, more than any other reason, this technology keeps you connected to your constituency -- and that's the foundation of good representation.
posted by Steve Harrelson @ 4/24/2009 08:05:00 AM | Permalink |
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