FLOOD VICTIMS TURN TO TWITTER

Ali Rosenberger

ATHENS, Ga. - With excessive rainfall practically drowning the city of Atlanta the weeks surrounding September 20, 2009, people everywhere have been tuned in to keep track of the flood and its developments. Many students at the University of Georgia are Atlanta natives and turned to social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter for information about their hometown during the flood.

(Pictured above is flood damage to a home in Buckhead 2 days after the floodwater subsided)

Although TV and radio news maintain their audience, it is social media outlets that many are turning to as their primary news source. From updates on social networking Web sites like Facebook and Twitter, people of all ages are exchanging information through social media. With this constant flow of new information, social media users expect their news organizations to keep up.

News organizations everywhere broadcasted updates and details daily to inform the public of damages and future forecasts.

“My family lives in Buckhead, and I knew they were being affected by the flood because of what I heard on the news,” said Kieva Hannon, currently in her fifth year at UGA. “Having to be in class every day and not with my family during such a hard time has been really stressful.”

(Pictured right is Kieva Hannon, a 21 year old business major at the University of Georgia. Hannon is checking her Twitter page for updates about the flood.)

Hannon said that she stayed updated with details about her area through personal tweets—which are status updates or posts on Twitter of 140 characters or less—by her friends and neighbors still living in Atlanta. “Being able to see what was happening every minute through Twitter really gave me piece of mind throughout the whole thing,” Hannon said.

Hannon was not the only one looking to Twitter for flood updates. The tag “#atlflood” was one of the top trending topics on Twitter—trending topics are typically one-sentence summaries of the most popular topics that people are “tweeting” about. They are listed on the Twitter homepage, and clicking on a trending topic brings up the most recent tweets about that topic, and the latest news and photos for that topic.

Because people are obtaining newsworthy information through outlets like Twitter and Facebook, news organizations are presented with a challenge: maintaining their audience by having the most recent and reliable news at any second, at any time of day.

Twitter has been a raising eyebrows in the newsroom for going on three years now, it allows the organization to post minute by minute updates on breaking news. From national newspapers like the New York Times to campus newspapers like UGA’s Red and Black, since Twitter’s creation in 2006, more and more news organizations have incorporated it as one of their news sharing outlets.

“We have an automatic update system set up through Twitterfeed, where the top five stories printed every day go to the Red and Black’s Twitter page,” said Ed Morales, the editorial advisor for the Red and Black.

The Red and Black adds about 20 followers a day to their Twitter page. Morales also said that when there is local breaking news, especially news that affects students, there is a huge jump in followers. During the Zinkhan case in Athens, for instance, the Red and Black gained over 1,000 followers in 36 hours.

Morales’s phone is synced to the Red and Black’s Twitter page.

“When there is breaking news, either I or another one of the editors will personally update our site,” Morales said. “Like when the Georgia Theater was burning down, for example, I was the one tweeting updates because I was actually there.”

When it comes to non-local news, Morales said the Red and Black tends to leave it up to larger publications to inform the public. During the Atlanta flood, for instance, Morales said he hoped people would have gone to the Atlanta Journal Constitution first, because those are the reporters on site, with the most up to date information.

“I might have posted links to other news sources on my personal Twitter page, but the Red and Black is a campus newspaper. There’s no need to report secondary information,” Morales said.

The AJC posted flood updates via Twitter almost every hour during the primary days of the flood. From weather forecasts to school closings to missing persons, the AJC made sure to have up-to-date information that its audience could rely on.

“My family really isn’t one of the most technologically savvy families I know…” said Anne Jones, a senior fashion major at UGA. But Jones said that her family recently started using Twitter to stay connected.

“I’ve got a brother at school in Alabama, and one that works in Chicago” Jones said, “and rather than my parents calling each of us with updates about what had been going on, dad just posted to his Twitter page.”

Even now, in the weeks after the flood, the AJC continues to tweet information about repairs being done, missing persons, and even information on hazards like sinkholes caused by the excessive rainfall. This information has been crucial to many family members of UGA students still living in metro-Atlanta.

“The only reason I use Twitter is to stay updated with news. I can connect to it from my iPhone, and get updates all day of what’s going on or who’s doing what,” said Pam Griffin, a 44-year old from Woodstock, Ga. “And what’s more is that I can follow a number of news sites at a time, unlike listening to a radio station or watching TV,” said Griffin.

Griffin has 2 kids, one of whom attends Gainesville State University in Athens, Ga. She said they are the ones responsible for introducing her to Twitter, and teaching her how to use it to her advantage.

(Pictured left is road damage caused by the flooding in Marietta, Ga.)

“I have had to change my route to work twice since the flood because of road closings,” said Griffin, an insurance agent who commutes from Woodstock to Atlanta daily, “and I only heard about the closings before I actually stumbled upon them because of Twitter,” Griffin said.

The Emerging Giant

21-year-old Eliza McArthur buying tickets for Kings of Leon through Live Nation Entertainment.


The Emerging Giant
By Blakeney Spong
ATHENS, Ga. - What do you get when you combine the nation’s largest ticketing company with the nation’s biggest concert promoter? Answer: a massive company that breaks into every facet of the music industry, not to mention a magnet for anti-trust legislation and a horde of consumer complaints.


In early February, Live Nation and Ticketmaster began negotiations for a merger between the two giants, which essentially has created one monster company called Live Nation Entertainment that combined their ticketing, marketing, data centers and back-offices, according to the Live Nation Entertainment press release.
“The companies will be combined in a tax-free, all-stock merger of equals with a combined enterprise of $2.5 billion…Live Nation and Ticketmaster shareholders will each own approximately 50 percent of the combined company,” the press release read.
The clear problem with this merger is the monopoly it has forced on the music industry and on concert-goers and music fans.
“It’s never a good thing when there’s a monopoly in any field. When there’s no competition, they can do whatever they want,” said Savannah Weeks, a 21-year-old Music Business student.
Ticketmaster was, by far, the most successful and well-known ticketing service in the country. Live Nation initially began as a company intent on providing consumers with an alternative, thereby generating competition in the market.
Live Nation seemed to be the company for the job, forcing Ticketmaster to perform at a higher level and prove itself to consumers. Live Nation quickly grew to be the nation’s largest concert promoter, an owner of dozens of amphitheaters (including the House of Blues) and has made over 360 deals with major artists like Madonna, Shakira and Jay-Z. In addition, Live Nation was in charge of 161 of the 200 tours in 2001, according to Billboard magazine.
However, Ticketmaster reestablished itself as the premiere ticketing service when it announced a plan to buy a majority of Front Line Management in October 2008. Front Line Management was one of the most powerful management companies in the world, according to Billboard magazine, and boasted touring acts such as the Eagles, Aerosmith, Fleetwood Mac, Jimmy Buffet and Christina Aguilera.
Though Ticketmaster seemed to be on top again, two major ticket debacles (one involving Ticketmaster, one with Live Nation) produced major disappointment by consumers in both companies and drove down shareholder investments. During Bruce Springsteen’s Working on a Dream tour, Ticketmaster re-routed fans to the company’s secondary site TicketsNow, which sells tickets at a premium price, even though regularly-priced tickets were still available. Live Nation experienced trouble when the Web site essentially crashed due to an overload of fans trying to buy tickets for the Phish reunion tour. Shortly thereafter, discussions of a merger between the two companies began to circulate.
Weeks isn’t the only one with these same concerns. Sen. Herb Kohl of Wash. commented on the merger after it was announced.
“What does Live Nation’s decision to merge with its competitor rather than fight in the market tell us about the company’s ability to compete with Ticketmaster? If Live Nation can’t compete, who can?” said the Senator.
Bruce Springsteen also expressed his opinion about the merger in a letter to fans on his Web site after the Ticketmaster disaster.
“The only thing that would make the current ticket situation even worse for the fan that it is now would be Ticketmaster and Live Nation coming up with a single system, thereby returning us to a near monopoly situation in music ticketing,” Springsteen wrote.
However, not all venues and artists have experienced such a massive effect as a result of the merger. Smaller venues in Athens like the Melting Point, 40 Watt and the Georgia Theater have not been affected in the same way venues like Philips Arena or Aaron’s Amphitheatre.
“Live Entertainment Nation controls everything, from promotions to ticket sales, by having this really intense monopoly that covers every aspect of a tour. As a small venue, we’re just on the same scope,” said Lexi Irvin, a 21-year-old Music Business student and intern at the Georgia Theater.
Irvin said that the merger doesn’t affect Athens as much because the city is home to so many small venues that can’t facilitate the huge concerts that Live Nation Entertainment is responsible for. Although these venues may book some national acts occasionally, for the most part, concert-goers are attending shows featuring local talent and buying tickets directly from these venues’ Web sites or in local record stores like School Kids Records.
Even with regard to the merger’s effect on national artists and big venues, not everyone has jumped on the bandwagon of disgust.
“I don’t think it’s a big deal. The two companies are good at what they do, and from a business standpoint, the merger makes sense,” said Dustin Barrett, a 21-year-old Finance major. “Merger or not, I wouldn’t have been buying tickets anywhere else. All I’m saying is for me, it didn’t change anything.”
Artists in favor of the merger include Seal, Eddie and Wolfgang Van Halen and Shakira (not a huge shocker considering her $70 million deal with Live Nation).
“Anything that can strengthen the link between music creators and music lovers has my support,” said Seal in a Rolling Stone interview, who has no stake in either company. “I believe the combined company will achieve that by aligning resources, talent and services.”
Live Nation Chief Executive Michael Rapino and Ticketmaster CEO Irving Azoff believe the merger “will help save jobs in the beleaguered music industry by forming a strong American company that can fend off foreign takeover threats,” according to an interview in Rolling Stone.
While this may be true, the central argument for opponents of the merger stand by the fact that concert-goers have no choice but to pay the prices and fees set forth by Live Nation Entertainment to see their favorite musicians. They have no legitimate alternative to turn to if they are unsatisfied with or overcharged by this ticketing conglomerate.
“I wanted to go to the Coldplay show this summer, but the tickets were $30, a $20 parking fee, a $13 convenience charge and there may have been another venue fee. I just couldn’t afford it,” said Weeks. “I feel like the real victim is unfortunately the music fan.”
For now the merger stands, but the outcome of anti-trust legislation has yet to be determined. However, you can bet the battle will be fierce.
“If nothing else, this controversy demonstrates another ailment of the music industry as the Internet and changing technology have taken over and transformed our daily lives,” said Haley Walker, a 21-year-old International Business major.

Edited by Thomas Patrick Hooper

Coldplay concert at Philips Arena in November 2008.

Mixed Reviews on Classroom Technology

James Porter, associate dean of the Odum School of Ecology, uses PowerPoint slides during his lecture on Tuesday, Oct. 6, at the University of Georgia. (Photo/Sarah Pelham)

SARAH PELHAM

Technology is changing the way professors teach and students learn at the University of Georgia, but not everyone agrees that these changes are always for the best.

“In some cases, I have seen technology make a bad talk worse. Please, please, no more boring PowerPoint text slides!” said James Porter, associate dean of the Odum School of Ecology. “You shouldn’t use technology to fire a hose at students with more information.”

Porter incorporates short video clips from the news and uses animated computer programs to show how ecosystems change over time in his classes.

“Instructional technology is a tool,” Porter said. “In skilled hands it can help to create a marvelous learning environment. However, it cannot make up for instructional incompetence, sloppy thinking or boring ideas.”

Visual media, the most commonly used form of classroom technology, has the potential to engage students better than lectures alone. Images and graphics can help students organize, understand and remember information and ideas, several studies show.

“I’m a very visual person, so it’s really good for me,” said Kate Mischaikow, a senior public relations major from Decatur, Ga. Mischaikow also said that some instructors do not use slides effectively, but even then she still enjoys having the visual element incorporated into lectures.

“I like having the text of the lecture,” said Megan Hooper, a sophomore animal science major from Covington, Ga. “Sometimes lectures are hard to follow or the professors are difficult to understand.”

Although students may enjoy slides to help them take notes or prepare for a test, a recent study reported that 59 percent of students find at least half of their lectures boring and that PowerPoint might be the cause, according to a July article in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Researchers at the University of Central Lancashire surveyed 211 students at a university in England to conduct the study, which was published in “British Educational Research Journal” in April, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Some students at UGA also find presentation software, such as PowerPoint or Keynote, boring.

“It’s overused, and it’s the same thing over and over again,” said Vishal Aggarwal, a junior biochemistry major from Johns Creek, Ga. “Kids just start tuning out. It can be used in class, but just sparingly.”

James Moore, a professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine, agrees.

“Probably my biggest concern about the use of technology stems from people using it just because they can,” Moore said.

For the past 15 years, Moore and other instructors in the College of Veterinary Medicine, have used computers to create 3D models of the organs inside of a horse, which helps students in his classes understand and diagnose diseases specific to horses.

“I’ve learned that if you’re teaching something and the students get it, you can teach it on a blackboard,” Moore said. “We need to utilize technology to help get points across. But if your students get it and have no trouble with the concept, then we don’t need it.”

“I think our natural inclination is when something is new, exciting or cool we want to use it for everything,” Moore said. “But we don’t need to use it for everything.”

Edited by Erin Dillard

DJ Hero Scratches into the Spotlight

Katie Weise

Guitar Hero developed and is set to release it's expansion.

The release of Guitar Hero four years ago spawned a new era in the gaming world. From Rock Band to DJ Hero, interactive video games that allow players to shred on the electric guitar, bang on the drums, or belt out a killer solo have taken over the youth of America.
DJ Hero, a music video game that is an expansion of Guitar Hero is set to be released on Oct. 27. To score points, the player has to "scratch" the turntable on the in time to marks that scroll on the screen. It features some DJs such as the late DJ AM, DJ Shadow, and Daft Punk.
“It’s kind of funny how the gaming trend is starting to follow the ‘hip’ music scene,” said Ross Bennett, a public relations major and music minor, “Who ever thought Daft Punk would be on a video game?”

Bennett has played guitar for over seven years, along with piano for a year and half. He is the keyboardist in a regional “dance-punk” band called Zlam Dunk.
“DJ Hero doesn't look like it is anything similar to DJ'ing though,” he said. “Probably as similar as the guitar is to real guitar playing.”
The turntable controller includes a rotatable turntable, three “stream” buttons, a crossfader, effects dial and Euphoria button. Euphoria is the Guitar Hero equivalent of Star Power, an effect that gives the player extra points for not missing any notes.

DJ Hero includes mixes by artists Black Eyed Peas, Justice, M.I.A., Beastie Boys and Gwen Stefani.
Dr. Casey O’Donnell, assistant professor at UGA with a specialization in the analysis of videogames, videogame technologies, videogame development production practices, pitch a similar game idea to Sony in 2004. His goal for “Virtual DJ” was to get inner city kids interested in math, but the company wasn’t interested.
“Really good games get put on the self for years,” he said. “Scratching is cool, but the downside is they are milking the ‘Hero’ platform.”
Guitar Hero 5, DJ Hero’s originator, was released without much attention on Sept. 1. Even though it has new features, The Beatles: Rock Band stole the stage. Bands composed of any combination of available instruments, a Rockfest competitive mode consisting of several various scoring mechanisms, and both song-specific and general Challenges to unlock new avatars, clothing and other extras in the game were no match for the 1960s pop sensation.
The Beatles: Rock Band was released Sept. 9 and was the third in the series of Rock Band. Rock Band, a music video game that includes guitar, bass, drums and microphone, introduced the multi-instrument version of the game, along with downloadable tracks in 2007.

Rock Band 2 followed shortly after while Guitar Hero released two more guitar games. Soon, Guitar Hero released Guitar Hero: World Tour in 2008, including the multi-instrument settings.
“People associate themselves with guitar hero or rock band,” said Andy Slagle, a business management major at UGA. “It's sort of like Coke and Pepsi.”
With the new features in these games of creating your own songs to play on the game, the question of what the technology is doing to the art of creating comes up.
“How can you create a song with five buttons on a fake instrument?” said Bennett.
O’Donnell, who worked on developing Guitar Hero 2 and the subsequent Guitar Hero games, said that the music isn’t the only part of the game that is art.
“It is a non-trivial task taking music and making it into something playable on Rock Band,” he said.
Originality has recently caused a riff between some artists and the video games. Courtney Love and Dave Grohl expressed anger and disappointment when they found out Kurt Cobain’s character could be unlocked to sing on others other than Nirvana’s. On the new Rock Band, Ringo is shown playing drums on a song when it was actually another Beatles’ member life also bothered Beatles fans.
“You can’t expect these games to be perfect,” said Taylor Adams, a marketing major at UGA. “They are not a replica of real life, they are games.”
Sources:
Taylor Adams
Casey O’Donnell
Andy Slagle

Ross Bennett

DJ Hero is set to be released Oct. 27

Zlam Dunk plays a show in Austin, Texas.

A family plays Rock Band with all the different instruments in their house.

Trading in Music Notes For Plastic Guitars

By: Jessica Cole

ATHENS, Ga. – Music videogames are on the rise, but music stars disagree with the many people who think the games promote learning an instrument, but are they correct?

On September 9, 2009, the video game world introduced a brand new version of Rock Band featuring the music of The Beatles. In its first week, Beatles Rock Band sold over 700,000 units, according to Rockband.com, and the numbers are on the rise

Gamespot.com reported Guitar Hero World Tour sold $3.4 million worth of games in 2008 alone. There’s no denying that the rhythm gaming hype has only begun, with the growing business of artist inspired video games it seems that kids have found their substitute for learning an actual instrument.

But, is this a real problem?

According to some seasoned rock stars, the problem is very real. Take former Rolling Stone bassist Bill Wyman for example. He told reporters, “It encourages kids not to learn [an instrument].”

“It makes less and less people dedicated to really get down and learn an instrument. I think it is a pity so I’m not really keen on that kind of stuff,” Wyman said.

Wyman says no, but Pink Floyd’s drummer Nick Mason showed a bit more optimism on the subject.

“It’s an interesting new development,” Mason said. But he went on to show his frustrations toward the music video game business.

“It irritates me having watched my kids do it - if they spent as much time practicing the guitar as learning how to press the buttons they'd be damn good by now,” Mason said.

Certain musicians are against the Rock Band/Guitar Hero craze, but the sale of these video games are showing no sign of slowing down. Guitar Hero 5 was released a week before Beatles Rock Band and sold nearly 800,000 units by its second week.

With the music videogame having no end in sight, will we eventually see a world where no one plays music anymore and we just mimic it through a videogame?

Jeff Soileau, a guitar instructor who has been playing for 31 years, has not seen any drastic rise in the amount of people looking for guitar training, but then again, he hasn’t seen a drop either.

“I teach about 10 students a month, and about four of them are ages 10-12, and they all play Guitar Hero,” Soileau said. “I haven’t noticed any increase, but it’s obviously very popular.”

As for whether or not he thinks the games promote learning an instrument, Soileau is torn.

“The students that I have all own it [Guitar Hero/Rock Band] and play it, but there might be other kids out there that aren’t calling me up for lessons, it probably ends up about a 50/50 split,” he said.

“I could see how some kids may be lured into a false sense of accomplishment, thinking that they can pick up a real guitar and get proficient in a month. It takes years and years of playing to become advanced. I could see how kids could be disillusioned.”

Revon F. an employee of the video game chain EB Games said that in an average month about 10 to 15 Rock Band and Guitar Hero games are sold. F. couldn’t give me the maximum quantity of games that the store carries, but he did say the monthly sales seem high.

Tran Woods, an employee at Atlanta’s Guitar Center, has been working at the instrument retailer for four years and said about 40 to 50 guitars are sold a month.

“I’ve seen an increase in them [guitars] selling since music videogames have been released,” Woods explained.

“I think it inspires people to want to play the guitar. I would say that they motivate people to actually buy and learn an instrument.”

According to the numbers, both guitar sales and video game sales are up.

Danny Davis, a religion major at the University of Georgia and aspiring musician with his band Dope John Paul disagrees with Wyman and Mason, explaining that he thinks the games teach players important aspects of playing an instrument.

“It won’t teach you the specific technique of a specific instrument but it teaches you rhythm and tempo,” he said. “I think it makes them want to learn more.”

No-Fi, Wavves Hit it Big through Social Media

A New Kind of Rockstar

by Christopher Joshua Benton

Popular indie rock website Gorilla v. Bear, in addition to a few to other blogs, have become the penultimate tastemakers for the no-fi genre

Photo: Christopher Joshua Benton

Athens, Ga--Watching Nathan Williams in his music video for “No Hope Kids,” filmed during his world tour, it is easy to imagine him a picaresque hero, getting wasted and playing shows, unwittingly implicated in the machinations of blog hype and Internet coolhunting. In less than two years, he’s released two albums, a bevy of cassettes, and has endured the hype and backlash waves of fickle music listeners. Already, he’s in the redemption phase. Wavves is the paradigm for a new kind of alternative band made on the Internet and in bedrooms, and promoted via social media tools.

Wavves was the bedroom pop project of one Nathan Williams (age 23); now, the epitome of “Gorilla v. Bear” blog hype, don’t-take-too-much-X-before-playing-stadiums advice from your mom, and the poster boy for the n of genre. Wavves also now includes the hardest working drummer in showbiz, Zach Hill.

His music probably hinges on an impossibility: if you ever tried playing a scratched Smiley Smile bootleg LP on blown-out speakers, so you used the line-out; instead, connecting the vinyl to that amp that’s been stuck in overdrive since you found it at some garage sale, the output would sound awful, but it’d also, maybe, reach that equilibrium of vaguely tuneful/ groggy pixilation/ distortion noise that Wavves has adopted as his own. His lo-fi noise music (no-fi) buries melody behind a heavy level of grit.

He’s not the only one: Why is everyone and their mom in a lo/no-fi band these days?

“I don’t know, Williams said laughing in a phone interview. "Maybe because it’s easy to do, it’s easy to record, and it doesn’t really cost money. But I’m not sure. I wouldn’t say I’m any scene in particular, I’m just labeled that."

"No-fi's really popular with these blogger guys," Williams said later, outside the 40 Watt Club after his performance.

At 21, after quitting his day job, Nathan Williams spent a month making ramshackle home recordings in GarageBand that would become his first two albums. Through the course of those two D.I.Y. albums, titled Wavves and Wavvves.

Simple and wide-eyed, it’s his pseudo-adolescent, bratty Brian Wilsonisms and up-Beat-Happening-floor-tom pop that transforms such drab subject matter into optimistic stoner anthems.

It wouldn’t be reductive to say Wavves has tapped into the cool zeitgeist where everyone has a fuzzy bedroom pet project, where everyone has a little too much consonance in their name (see UUVVWWZ, Lovvers, Nodzzz), and where no one can really play their instruments.

It is arguable that without the power of the blogging community and other social media like Hypemachine (a blog aggregation tool that collects MP3s from various weblog platform), Wavves and bands like him would still be very obscure.

"I think the first place that gave me press was that blog Gorilla v. Bear," Williams said.

"Gorilla v. Bear" is a popular web destination for indie music. With over 3 million visitors a week, it has become a forum for heralding what will become the next big thing in independent rock music.

"I never heard of the genre no-fi until I started going to Gorilla v. Bear, and there's this new genre 'chillwave' that Carles from that 'Hipster Runoff' website made up. It's like their inventing genres…," Andrew Dykes said, a local musician who hopes to get involved in the blog machine.

Ryan Grub, lead singer of another up-and-coming no-fi band Ganglians, currently on tour with Wavves, is convinced of the power of blogs. "We're not one of those Internet guys, but it's hard to imagine who would know about us without blogs and stuff."

Perhaps most significant of this new rockist narrative is that “overnight success” is literal—relative popularity is instantaneous and measured by a new temporality called “blog years,” an ADD blank (screen) generation eye-blink test, akin to a “light year.”

The short incubation period from obscurity, to hypeblogged, to Pitchfork Best New Music wunderkind, to backlash, only magnifies that most of these bands can’t perform live. When Williams first started playing live shows last spring, he was terrible. His inexperience reached a tipping point during his so-called “meltdown” at the Primavera Sound Festival in May where he took a cocktail of ecstasy, Valium, and Xanax, harassed the audience and was booed off stage.

“When I first started playing, the first couple of shows were with 500 people, so I just got thrown into it and I didn’t have any time to work the set out with somebody and practice and play smaller shows for a while. It just kinda blew up so quickly and I was playing for tons of people right away so it wasn’t necessarily very good in the very beginning. There was stuff to work out and its just like with anything, you do it enough and you get better at it,” he said.

Since then, Wavves has played to glowing live reviews and plenty of redemption feature stories. And with a new album already recorded, it seems he’s about go through it all over again. Whether Wavves or Ganglians are still around after the hype, is anyone's guess.

Kyle Hoover, Ganglians guitarist seems hopeful, talking out of a sinus infection. "It's tough on tour, but I want to do this forever."

Forever and anon, with a little blog love, it seems like any musician with a dream and recording equipment can be propelled from anonymity to fame.

Edited by Ali Rosenberger

The New Political Wheel

Kristen Luca

Politics and political campaigning may be developing a new face on the Internet with the expansion of online social media.

Social media services like Twitter and Facebook allow users to quickly get messages out to large groups of people. According to a recent New York Times article, the tracking firm comScore has measured Twitter’s traffic at 54 million visitors a month. For politicians and political candidates who are committed to getting their names and messages out to their constituents, these Web sites might hold potential.

Samantha Jose, communications director for the Young Democrats at the University of Georgia, said that the Democratic Party has already taken advantage of social media. She referenced President Obama’s 2008 campaign, and his use of Facebook and Twitter to spread the word about his platforms on issues and updates about events.

Jose also thought the Democratic Party takes more advantage of social media services than the Republican Party does. “I’d like to think we’re a little bit quicker on the uptake,” she said.

Matthew Ralston, PR Director for UGA’s College Republicans, said that he thought the Republican Party as a whole was not using social media as much as the Democratic Party. Ralston said at the moment few Republicans were utilizing the services.

“It’s like the wheel has just come out of the sky for them,” Ralston said.

However, he also thought that in the future more Republicans would come to use the services. He pointed to the low cost of social media and their ability to reach many people in just a few clicks.

But social media is not useful only to campaigning politicians. In June, Reuters reported that the U.S. State Department asked Twitter to delay an upgrade that would have shut the service down during the day in Iran. Iranians protesting the presidential election results were using Twitter to speak with each other and get past communication blocks set up by the Iranian government.

Private citizens like the Iranians, more traditionally associated with the expansion of social media, have the opportunity to use social technology not only as an audience but as active participants.

Samantha Jose, of the Young Democrats, thinks that the greatest advantage in using social media to spread political ideas is that citizens are more informed. “Social media allows for debate to be way more instantaneous,” Jose said.

She added that on the Internet, there is no filter for information. Access to publishing software on the Web is cheap and often free, allowing anyone with a connection to upload their thoughts and hold a conversation. However, Jose thinks that the benefits of using social media outweigh the risk of encountering less substantial or non-credible information.

Users can find other benefits to having politicians on Facebook and Twitter, too. Allison Clark, an Advertising major, used social media to find out what political ideas and beliefs her friends and acquaintances held. She looked on Facebook to see what politicians her friends had become ‘fans’ of, and even became a fan of a politician herself.

Allison Clark said that she also believed Democrats used social media “better” than Republicans. “Democrats target a younger audience, so they have to be more knowledgeable” about social media, Allison Clark said. She added, however, “Republicans are getting there.”

People using social media for political purposes can also send messages to their online network in the process. Ben Clark, a UGA student and member of the Young Democrats, says that he ‘friended’ several politicians on Facebook during the 2008 election season. He follows President Barack Obama, Sen. Chris Dodd and former Sen. John Edwards on Facebook.

Having his Facebook accounts associated with the politicians’ is not entirely to read through their updates and messages, though. “During the election,” Ben Clark said, “I wanted everyone to know who I supported.”

Edited by: Megan Niager