Pryor takes questions in town hall on Twitter

— For 45 minutes, constituents grilled U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor about health care, taxes, the “fiscal cliff” and a number of other issues.

But Pryor’s questioners Thursday weren’t in a community hall or auditorium in Little Rock, Mena or Hot Springs. Like Pryor, they were each looking at a computer screen or a smart phone that was set on Twitter, a growing social-media website that allows participants to send their thoughts onto the Internet in short 140-character bursts.

During his first Twitter town-hall session, Pryor fielded questions from constituents while one of his staff members, Lucy Speed, pecked away on a keyboard, typing his answers onto the site.

“Why have you refused to take a position on any #FiscalCliff plan,” asked a Tweet from the Arkansas Republican Party that used the #, or “hashtag” symbol that allows users to mark topics on the site for future reference, making it easier to search for related Twitter conversations.

“Everything is on the table,” Pryor responded. “Ideas are still circulating. I want tax reform, spending cuts.”

Afterward, Pryor said it was difficult to engage in a detailed conversation, especially on issues such as the fiscal cliff - a combination of tax increases and spending cuts that are set to go into effect next year. Many economists warn that it will kneecap the economy if it isn’t averted.

“I absolutely feel limited,” Pryor said. “Are we going to stake out a position on the fiscal cliff in 140 characters? It’s hard to give a precise answer in such limited space.”

Still, Pryor and Arkansas’ other lawmakers in Washington said it is essential to keep up with changing technology to communicate with voters.

Sen. John Boozman’s use of social media was highlighted in a 2011 Associated Press and Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism report that said the Arkansas Republican’s “From the Mailbag” videos on youtube.com were a good example of connecting with constituents through technology.

The study found that 81 percent of House and Senate members use Twitter.

Boozman, like other members of the Arkansas delegation, said he leaves negative comments up on his Internet sites unless they use profanity or go “over the top.”

“We get a barometer on what’s going on” through the sites, he said.

Arkansas’ U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin has done two Twitter town-hall sessions and is active on youtube.com and Facebook.

“You need to do them all, and you need to do them all well,” he said.

Griffin, who scored in the top eight among congressional Republicans in a House GOP contest to attract more Facebook and Twitter followers last year, said his YouTube video channel has generated the most interest. He said he intends to keep it updated regularly.

“People want to see a lot of new information,” he said. “They don’t want to go to the page and see the same page they saw the day before and the day before that. Always providing new content is important.”

U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford, a Republican from Jonesboro, said his Facebook and Twitter updates allow his office to send and receive comments in “real time.”

“We get negative and positive comments,” he said. “We’re not doing it to get‘attaboys’ and praise. We get negative and positive comments, and we take seriously the responses we get.”

U.S. Rep. Steve Womack, a Rogers Republican, also uses Twitter and Facebook. He said he is not a prolific Tweeter, preferring to use the medium to announce his schedule when he’s in his district, rather than give a blow-by-blow account of action in the House.

He said his favorite use of technology is participating in telephone town halls. He said for “a couple of 3,000 bucks” he can connect with more than 15,000 constituents.

Users sign up on a website to participate in the town-hall sessions. A Web application then calls all of the participants’ phone numbers simultaneously and allows constituents to listen to the congressman and queue up and ask him a question directly.

“I find it to be the most productive and cost-effective method of communication with my constituents,” he said.

According to a study released in August by Advocacy Media, a Washington online marketing firm, congressional Twitter accounts are often inactive and targeted by spam-created “fake” followers. These “ghost” accounts don’t correspond to actual people, much less constituents in a lawmaker’s state or district.

The study found that the average Twitter account for a House member has between 3,000 and 6,000 followers. Of those, about 6 percent are “fake” followers, and about 30 percent are followers with inactive accounts.

Congressmen who then go on the website to reach out to voters “have no idea whether they are communicating with constituents or not,” said Jon Tilton, Advocacy Media’s general manager.

“They don’t know if it is truth or fiction,” he said. “It’s a lot of noise.”

Twitter has limitations, said Sean Caddle, managing partner of Front Porch media, a New Jersey social media consulting group that has state and federal clients, including Democratic U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey.

Because space is limited on the Twitter site, Caddle said, it is best used by politicians to steer the conversation to other sites, like Facebook, where users can exchange longer messages.

“Twitter is a good starting point,” he said.

Caddle said that when the interaction becomes more in-depth, politicians can glean information from voters and amass databases of information to be used in future campaigns. President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign did a better job of “data mining” than anyone in history, he said.

“Obama’s campaign knew what kind of ice cream you like,” Caddle said.

Members of Arkansas’ Capitol Hill contingent use social-media sites differently as part of their daily routines.

Griffin said he checks his Twitter feed at least 10 times a day. He follows many news feeds, including the Arkansas Associated Press, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Talk Business and several national television news outlets.

“It’s less about following my buddies and more about following sources of information,” he said.

Other politicians are a little more old school.

“I’m not glued to the - what do you call it? - the social media, every day,” said Womack.

Crawford described the amount of time each day on social-media sites as “minutes.”

Similarly, Pryor said he tries to catch up “every now and then.”

“I’m not a guy who does a lot of these things, personally,” said Boozman, who said he monitors his Facebook and Twitter sites from time to time and relies on staff members to tell him if something of interest comes up on the site.

That happened in January when, after a flood of messages to his Facebook site, Boozman withdrew his support for the Stop Online Piracy and Protect IP (Intellectual Property) Act, a bill that critics said would stifle freedom of speech.

But not every suggestion that lands on a senator’s Facebook or Twitter feed can be so easily addressed.

Josh Bramlett, who Tweeted under the handle @SonofConway, had a question that stumped Pryor during Thursday’s forum.

“Do you think Arkansas State and Arkansas should play an annual football game at War Memorial,” he asked.

Pryor responded, “Solving the fiscal cliff is easier than answering that question.”

Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/10/2012

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