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City 'Fan'? Keep up with Winston-Salem on networking sites
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Published: February 25, 2009
Winston-Salem is Twittering:
Tweet. Winston-Salem receives $1.64 million to serve homeless.
Tweet. Statewide tornado drill on March 4 in N.C.
Tweet. Garbage pickup curbside only 2/4/2009.
Quick bites of information, put out through the city's newest foray into the Internet age. The city of Winston-Salem is now a proud member of Twitter and Facebook -- two of the Internet's most popular networking Web sites.
The city signed on to get information out to its more computer-literate residents, said Lynette Shaull, the city's coordinator of Web content. Have a Facebook account? You too can be a "fan" of Winston-Salem. Signed on to Twitter? Start following "CityofWS" and get up-to-the-minute info about trash collection and traffic lights. Both sites are free for the city, unless you count the time Shaull puts into posting updates.
"We're taking advantage of the opportunities out there on the Internet to reach as many of our citizens as we can," she said.
City Twitter posts are short -- 140 characters or less -- which, if you are curious, is about the length of the sentence you're reading now. The site won't allow anything more. People can sign up on Twitter to get those updates -- known as "tweets" -- as text messages on their cell phones if they would like to be informed even when they are not at a computer.
If you become a "fan" of the city on Facebook, you will get updates about the city's bike routes, volunteer opportunities and the latest air-quality report. All that information is also available on the city's Web site, www.cityofws.org.
Winston-Salem isn't the only municipality using online social networking sites to keep its residents updated -- Greensboro also "Twitters," as does the federal government. But it is somewhat rare. Neither Greensboro nor Charlotte has a Facebook page, and neither Charlotte nor Raleigh posts updates on Twitter.
Professors who study these sorts of things say that there are no statistics that count the local governments who use social sites to keep up with residents. S. Shyam Sundar, a co-director of Pennsylvania State University's Media Effects Research Laboratory, said he wondered if local governments joining such sites as Facebook might not have a "chilling effect" on people's willingness to be open about their lives online.
"The municipality is such an authority figure in the community, that you're not exactly pals with it," Sundar said. "It's not like you're joshing around with a municipality.… It's an institution to which you're responsible. It's an institution to which you pay your local taxes."
But, he said, the sites could encourage "e-democracy," in which residents and legislators could debate issues and problems in an open online forum, coming to a consensus in front of anyone with Internet access.
"The real potential of Facebook, I think, lies in allowing for deliberative democracy to take place," Sundar said.
That isn't happening on either of the city's sites just yet, although as of last night, 145 people had signed up to be "fans" on Facebook and 48 had signed up to follow the city on Twitter.
Shaull said she simply hopes to get information into the hands of as many residents as she can.
"It is possibly a new audience, people who don't come to our city Web site," she said. "So they may find us on Twitter or Facebook, and we're able to get our information out there and be in touch."
■ Follow the city of Winston-Salem on Twitter at www.twitter.com/cityofws.
■ To become a "fan" on Facebook go to www.facebook.com , search "City of Winston-Salem NC."
■ Laura Graff can be reached at 727-7279 or at lgraff@wsjournal.com.
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