Fresh Politics, New Media

I really enjoy watching David Brooks and Mark Shields engage in a civil discussion of the week's news on the Friday broadcast of the PBS News Hour . While I don't always agree with David Brooks' politics, I do think he presents some very rational and pressing arguments in his work (his recent column on weed aside). In today's New York Times, Brooks critiques our heightened love of machines and the use of automation to replace human dependent tasks like driving cars or picking stocks. Brooks makes the point that even in this age of rapidly expanding technology, there are certain human activities that machines just can't replicate. Brooks is certainly right on some fronts. But maybe the question isn't a dichotomous one -- machine vs. human? Perhaps, as I've seen in my own recent work with a team of computer science colleagues , it's about using machines to enhance human efforts. Relying on techniques from the world of artificial intelligence (e.g., aut...

Seems that Twitter is a useful forum for comedians these days -- especially as a testing and proving ground for jokes that don't make it past the cutting room floor. There was an  interesting article in Sunday's  NYTimes  about the ways in which late-night comedy writers and even the head writer for  The Onion , Seth Reiss, uses Twitter to keep the comic juices flowing. Seems the worlds of new media and comedy (and even political comedy to some extent) are coming together in an attempt to make us laugh. Check the article out and find out who to follow.

Emerging research by Cornell University sociologists (set to be published in the journal, Science ) tracks the mood of Twitter users over time. Analyzing a large corpus of tweets, the researchers found that patterns in mood follow a general rhythm across cultures and countries. The highlight of the study was published in an article in this week's  New York Times: "Drawing on messages posted by more than two million people in 84 countries, researchers discovered that the emotional tone of people’s messages followed a similar pattern not only through the day but also through the week and the changing seasons. The new analysis suggests that our moods are driven in part by a shared underlying biological rhythm that transcends culture and environment." The study offers a true analysis of mood patterns using text analysis -- a growing area of interdisciplinary research that has computer scientists, social scientists, and communication researchers working collaboratively ...

There's a fun article in today's NYT  about  @ElBloombito , the 25 year old native New Yorker, Rachel Figueroa-Levin, who passed time during the storm tweeting about Mayor Bloomberg's attempts at communicating in Spanish. As the article in the NYT notes: "By Sunday morning, @ElBloombito had about 2,000 followers. By Tuesday afternoon, there were nearly 15,000, among them Mr. Bloomberg ( @MikeBloomberg )." Rachel Figueroa-Levin, more commonly known as  @Jewyorican  on Twitter  even exchanged some messages directly with Mayor Bloomberg's staff.  The whole @ElBloombito story and the burst of attention Figueroa-Levin received is a great example of how Twitter and social media can change the communication landscape and bring 15 minutes of fame (or more) for the average American citizen. Seems Twitter has the potential to make newsmakers out of us all.

I'm busy working on pulling the top political comedy moments from July for my upcoming end of the month blog post over at The Baltimore Sun's Ridiculous Report . If there is something you just couldn't stop laughing at in July, send me an email with the link to the clip. In the meantime, here's an article from The Towerlight , Towson University's student newspaper, about my experience at the White House Twitter Town Hall.

According to Politico, Newt Gingrich is 2012 Republican candidate to watch on Twitter .  As Emily Schultheis noted yesterday, Gingrich who has been using the social media service since Februrary 2009, is leading the pack of Republican contenders. From her piece:  "Gingrich has a whopping 1.3 million followers on the popular social media site. His three closest Twitter rivals from the 2012 GOP presidential field, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Reps. Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann, all hover around 60,000 followers apiece. Even Twitter enthusiast Sarah Palin, who hasn’t indicated whether she’ll run, has less than half the followers Gingrich does." Of course, Schultheis also commends Gingrich for his willingness to be entertaining with his tweets and notes a recent online conversation between Gingrich and Rainn Wilson, or Dwight Schrute of The Office . Rainn Wilson suggested a Newt/Schrute campaign and the former Speaker of the House responded with his own comi...

My participation as a "tweep" at the White House's Twitter Town Hall last week has encouraged me to spend more time reviewing what we know about who is using the 140 character driven social media service. According to a report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project , 13% of Americans now use Twitter (May 2011, up from 8% in November 2010). What's even more interesting is the demographics of who is using Twitter. As Pew reports: Non-white internet users continue to have higher rates of Twitter use than their white counterparts; indeed, the Twitter-adoption gap between African-Americans and whites has increased over the past six months. In November 2010, there was an eight percentage point difference in Twitter use between African-American and white internet users (13% for blacks vs. 5% for whites). By May 2011, that gap was 16 percentage points -- 25% of online African Americans now use Twitter, compared with 9% of such whites. African-American and Latin...

One of the best parts of attending last week's Twitter Town Hall at the White House -- shaking the President's hand. That's me in the black and green!

Today I was one of about 30 "tweeps" in the audience at President Barack Obama's Twitter Town Hall held in the East Room of The White House. For those of you who don't know, the "tweeps" were asked to attend and chronicle the event on Twitter. The session was moderated by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey  and featured questions from average Americans, politicians, and journalists alike -- all that were submitted on Twitter using the #askobama hashtag. My fellow tweeps represented a diverse group -- from PR professionals to public school teachers to bloggers to academics to college students. For my detailed impressions of the event, please check out my live tweets from the session. And for some news on the event itself, here's a summary from Politico . One of the coolest parts (besides shaking the President's hand) was being a part of the audience to watch as Obama sent the first "presidential tweet." Here's a video of this historic occa...

While audience members won't be able to ask questions at tomorrow's Townhall/Tweet-Up, I did take the time to post some questions about the economy and jobs on Twitter using the #askObama hashtag. While I have questions about other issues besides the economy and jobs (same-sex marriage, politics of science, foreign policy, etc.), I'm trying to stay on topic. Here are my questions. It's actually a fun exercise. Try posting your own on Twitter. Just don't forget to add #askObama . amybree   Amy Bree Becker   How do we reform public pensions without going back on promises made to retirees and those already in the system?  # AskObama 3 hours ago   Favorite   Reply   Delete amybree   Amy Bree Becker   How do we educate the new generation and also potentially re-train Boomers for opportunities in science and technology?  # AskObama 3 hours ago   amybree   Amy Bree Becker   How do we stimulate the economy while balancing the ne...

President Obama (@BarackObama) will be hosting the first ever Twitter "Town Hall" at the White House tomorrow. I'll be there as part of the small audience of @WhiteHouse followers for the corresponding Tweet-Up and will be live posting about the afternoon's events in 140 characters or less. You can follow me here: @amybree Jack Dorsey, Twitter's CEO will moderate the conversation. More details from Twitter are available here . The event can be watched live on the Internet starting at 2pm at  http//askobama.twitter.com  or . http://wh.gov/live . In the meantime, don't forget to tweet your questions about the economy and jobs using the #AskObama hash tag on Twitter and follow news about the event via @TownHall.