[Air-L] ask your lawmaker

[tom abeles]

In response to Deborah's post on her "widget" for polling:






We are entering an interesting era in the domain of social networking.
A report, today, Jan 12, on National Public Radio around community
activism and the Obama administration pointed out that they, too are
organizing along these lines. What is more interesting is that they
have the demographics of the individuals on their lists which lets them
selectively activate persons by age, issue, location, etc and
immediately not only poll them but move them as a segment into
political response. This is what the mailing list kings of earlier
years could do to get citizens involved. In other words, the ability to
extract maximum attention and pressure.

We
are in "interesting times" and the press in an era of the "New Media"
is facing an increasing dilema as to its roll in society whether
commercial or public broadcast. Is there really a "Fourth Estate" as we
have seen in the past or has social media, including blogs and the
plethora of networking sites changing the scene and it is not just a
matter of adopting new tools but of changing the business model.

The
same thing is happening in almost all information
gathering/dissemenating organizations, including education at all
levels, preK->gray as well as the idea of academic research and
publishing.

thoughts?

tom

tom abeles


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