Just as important, if not more important, local law enforcement are joining social networks. Kennesaw Police has joined Twitter, and they tweet crime information, what to look out for, traffic updates, and some general information. Here is a link to their twitter page: https://twitter.com/KennesawPolice
Most people have access to the internet, especially on their mobile devices, so getting an important update from the local government or law enforcement can play a crucial role in society. Also, it keeps local citizens involved in government. If you have a local issue that needs to be addressed, instead of having to make a phone call or go see the government official, all someone has to do now is tweet that local office. It has never been easier for citizens to be involved in local government. The link between social media and local government allows citizens to be up to date on important issues while being involved at the same time.
I appreciate local governments, businesses and services becoming active in social media. For example, when something happens at KSU or in the KSU area, we alerted via e-mail, phone call AND text message rather than having to search for it or read about it in a newspaper. The real time feel keeps us all informed. With these services being "in our face" (if we subscribe to it of course) and not having to search for it brings more people to the information and keeps people up to date without having to be too involved.
ReplyDeleteAaron, while I agree that this is mostly a good idea for local government and media to become more involved socially and online, I believe one needs to keep an open mind that it isn't all rainbows and unicorns. I mean, that especially holds true with politics. "Fbliss6" commented that, "With these services being in our face and not having to search for it brings more people to the information and keeps the people up to date without having to be too involved." The keywords in that sentence are, "without having to be too involved." We, the people and as a society, have definitely become lazy and needy. We want our information fast and convenient. With that being said, whatever reaches us first, we tend to believe. We automatically start forming an opinion on a matter based off what we see or hear first. This is regardless if it's true or not. Many people don't feel the need to dig deeper unless they are truly involved with the topic. So, this argument is just not about local government and media, it's about the bigger picture as well. We need that drive to want to dig deeper and know the truth; we deserve it. But also, why should we have to dig so deep just to find out truth? Why is truth so hard to come by?
ReplyDelete@Whitney,
DeleteYou make a great point about receiving instant information and accepting it as true. At times this can be useful (like in times of emergency), but as far as news stories go, I think most of the time people will see a news story and automatically accept the whole thing as fact without doing their own research first. I think the truth is so hard to come by these days because there is one story told multiple ways that are so opposite from each other in "truth". As we've discusses on the discussion board, Fox will tell one story and CNN will tell the same story but in a completely different way. This leads to public confusion.