Newsom 'tweets' candidacy to nation
Kelly Galucci
Issue date: 5/7/09 Section: Politics
While swine flu has many in a tizzy, few are as concerned about the newest electronic epidemic - the latest victim to date: Gavin Newsom, democratic politician and avid Twitter user.
Twitter is a Web site based on status updates of 140 characters or less. It simply asks the question "what are you doing?" and allows the user to fill in the blank as a way of informing their friends, family and co-workers of their day-to-day or even hour-to-hour lives. Each status is called a tweet and many celebrities, from Lindsay Lohan to Soulja Boy, tweet many times a day from either their cell phones or the Web site. This event of frequently updating one's status has been dubbed micro-blogging.
Newsom is only one of the many politicians being swept away by this fad, though he is unique in the fact that he announced he was running for governor of California via Twitter.
"It's official-running for Gov of CA. Wanted you to be the first to know. Need your help. Check out video: http://tr.im/iOCN and ReTweet" is what he posted on April 21 at 9:05 a.m. from his cell. He tweets as little as once or as many as five times a day, continuing to update the public on various fundraisers, events and shows what he is doing.
Many of his tweets attempt to involve those who follow him, for example "Will be interviewing the found of Digg.com-Kevin Ros -on my radio show-any questions for Kevin?" Newsom can also be seen responding to those who post to him from something as simple as "thank you" to a more informative, "good question-school bonds already at 55%."
The question that remains: is this is a positive or negative choice for the politician to be making?
"I think it will probably get him votes, "communications professor Josh Robbins communications said. "People will feel they know him, so people will feel as though they're more involved. I think it's really smart."
Colin McCann, professor of communications, sees it as a give and take. "Different generations will see this different ways," he said. "People are going to judge the validity by the medium and I'm sure it will gain and lose him interest. It should be pretty balanced."
While both professors seemed pleasantly surprised at Newsom's actions, they did agree that it was a sign of the changing times. "It's a different kind of human interaction," Robbins said. "Humans are evolving and have a whole other awareness of other people's lives. It changes so fast, but I don't think it's a negative."
McCann said, "It's intoxicating because you look at the possibility of what you can do. I think that we're going to see, in terms of politics, that people are going to use the Internet in more innovative ways so as not to be left behind."
It seems as though the votes will truly tell if this was a smart move on Newsom's part. The Democratic primary is set for June of 2010.
Twitter is a Web site based on status updates of 140 characters or less. It simply asks the question "what are you doing?" and allows the user to fill in the blank as a way of informing their friends, family and co-workers of their day-to-day or even hour-to-hour lives. Each status is called a tweet and many celebrities, from Lindsay Lohan to Soulja Boy, tweet many times a day from either their cell phones or the Web site. This event of frequently updating one's status has been dubbed micro-blogging.
Newsom is only one of the many politicians being swept away by this fad, though he is unique in the fact that he announced he was running for governor of California via Twitter.
"It's official-running for Gov of CA. Wanted you to be the first to know. Need your help. Check out video: http://tr.im/iOCN and ReTweet" is what he posted on April 21 at 9:05 a.m. from his cell. He tweets as little as once or as many as five times a day, continuing to update the public on various fundraisers, events and shows what he is doing.
Many of his tweets attempt to involve those who follow him, for example "Will be interviewing the found of Digg.com-Kevin Ros -on my radio show-any questions for Kevin?" Newsom can also be seen responding to those who post to him from something as simple as "thank you" to a more informative, "good question-school bonds already at 55%."
The question that remains: is this is a positive or negative choice for the politician to be making?
"I think it will probably get him votes, "communications professor Josh Robbins communications said. "People will feel they know him, so people will feel as though they're more involved. I think it's really smart."
Colin McCann, professor of communications, sees it as a give and take. "Different generations will see this different ways," he said. "People are going to judge the validity by the medium and I'm sure it will gain and lose him interest. It should be pretty balanced."
While both professors seemed pleasantly surprised at Newsom's actions, they did agree that it was a sign of the changing times. "It's a different kind of human interaction," Robbins said. "Humans are evolving and have a whole other awareness of other people's lives. It changes so fast, but I don't think it's a negative."
McCann said, "It's intoxicating because you look at the possibility of what you can do. I think that we're going to see, in terms of politics, that people are going to use the Internet in more innovative ways so as not to be left behind."
It seems as though the votes will truly tell if this was a smart move on Newsom's part. The Democratic primary is set for June of 2010.
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