Rep. Albert Gore, Jr. of Tennessee was the first to speak when the U.S. House of Representatives first began live, televised debate on the House Floor in 1979. “It is a solution for the lack of confidence in government,” Congressman Gore said, alluding to the public’s post-Watergate demand for a more transparent government. “The marriage of this medium and of our open debate has the potential, Mr. Speaker, to revitalize representative democracy.”
Today, we are in the midst of another media revolution: text, email, websites, wikis, blogs, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google+, Foursquare, Quora, RSS Feeds, Instagram, Spapface… today, the Internet is social, interactive, and collaborative. Nonetheless, it’s possible that Representative Gore’s comment from 1979 has implications for us today – as we consider ways that social media shape legislators’ evolving relationships with their constituents. With today’s assignment in mind, please share your opinion on the question below:
21st Century Citizenship 
If we lived in a world where political transparency was a standard of legislators, and there were no secret powers or influence controlling the seats of legislation. Then social media could affect the way people are represented. The filtration of the internet is another compromising factor standing between the internet and legislators. Going on social media should provide a greater insight of the people and their range of opinion.
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Social media does include many voices that the legislators need to consider. However, not everyone has a social media account, like the elders and the poors. In addition, the number of hackers grows fast as technology becomes a day-to-day necessity; in other words, there will people hacking and twisting intentions of some posts or polls on Therefore, legislators cannot rely everything on the feedbacks from social medias. To seriously consider any opinion, I think the best way is for people still to be formal; for example, send mails or emails to the governments offices. In conclusion, legislators may have a look on social media, but they should not depend heavily on it.
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I think social media should be some way for delegates to stay in with what the people, but I don’t think it should be become the major form of communication. I believe this beacuse of what Donald Trump says on twitter, so therefore I hate when politians use social media like that.
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I think social media can be a fantastic tool to gauge public opinion on a situation, but it’s not a reliable or credible source. Representatives can use it to understand what their constituents are thinking and what ideas they have, but that’s the limit to it’s use. There are too many ways to take advantage of social networks to put all of ones trust in it.
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I think that social media, while serving as a great form of communication and connection, should not influence our representatives and there are many reasons why. First, it was outlined in “The Legislator as Delegate” that representatives should not act on “‘the flash of the day'” by their constituents. Social media is as current a forum as anything else and different sites can filter through thousands of issues in the day. If representatives were to try to heed all the issues and complaints by their constituents, then the complaint that “Government can’t accomplish anything” really would ring true. Furthermore, the “debates” that occur on social media aren’t truly formal debates and discussions where there is real-time dialogue with new ideas and perspectives developing out of the words of others. In conclusion, social media should not influence our representatives no matter what model they follow, because more often than not, they would be listening to this whims and wills of half-processed thoughts that don’t really represent the people.
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Like the addition of cameras in the 1976 deabate, social media acts as a “window” for constituents to get a better view of a legislator’s standpoints. Interacting with the public is easier with social media but it also adds pressure because one wrong tweet could cause controversy. Sometimes it’s not the actual legislator that’s making the comments. What we see from legislators on social media should be taken with a grain of salt but as social media becomes more important to campaigns, social media interactions will hopefully improve.
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In trying to balance accurate representation of their constituents, and their own personal conscience, Legislators are faced with finding a coherent, user-friendly, and accurate way of communicating with their constituents. Social Media seems like an easy, fast fix, but it may be more like slapping a band-aid on a stab wound. Vyacheslav W. Polonski, in a Newsweek Article, says “But with so many views flying around, how can politicians ever reach a consensus that satisfies everyone? That’s of course a problem as old as democracy itself, only now citizens have the real power to assemble online. The force of their discontent can disrupt governments and threaten the security of representatives even outside electoral cycles.” While social media opens up conversation between Legislators and their constituents, the filter bubbles we create online can shut this conversation down just as quickly. If we are surrounded with others who only believe the same things as ourselves, we don’t hear both sides of a debate, and people are just shouting into an echo chamber. This undoes any value that social media comments can add. If people are only shouting uninformed, socially political banter, we can’t find truth. This not only complicates things for us, but leaves our legislators in a tricky situation. How are they to decide which comments represent constituents on a whole, and which are just anomalies. If a citizen is passionate and wants to be heard, there are many ways of communicating with our legislators without the complications of online discourse.
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Social media should not have a large impact on the way legislators judge and represent their constituents. I believe that it doesn’t represent people acuratley because it lacks professionalism and is specialized to be purely social.
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As social media grows as a medium for communication, it has become easier for legislators to access citizen’s various political opinions. When considering these views, I believe legislators should remember the bandwagoning and joking that occurs in online platforms. If a citizen genuinely cares about an issue, they should contact someone directly -via letter, email, or local meeting- instead of ranting online.
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As representative Gore stated about televised congressional debate in 1979, social media “has the potential” to increase participation in out democracy. As it stands right now, however, many flaws exist in its actual usage. For example, politicians use it to communicate with their constituents, but many of them either don’t run their own accounts, end up posting something they regret, or some mixture of the two. Social media also provides excess noise for representatives, making it difficult to find legitimate posts about change that their voter base wants to see. Their is still potential for social media, but as of right now the two most effective ways to send a message to a local rep is to write a letter, call their office, or vote in an election.
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