That said, we can understand if you, and other folks who want to get involved prefer the time-tested method of calling (here’s the link for that http://sunlightfoundation.com/pass482) or writing your Members, and prefer to save Twitter for other kinds of communication.

We also hear you that “twobbying” Members by sending them direct messages via Twitter may eventually cause them to stop participating in using this two-way medium. But, it IS a two-way medium, isn’t it? Members of Congress who adopt social media can’t expect it to work like top-down media.

That said, there is a larger point here for all of us to ponder, as we foster greater transparency and participation by embracing interactive communications technologies. We are going to need better tools for filtering and managing mass participation, as these media are adopted by more and more people. Right now, it’s pretty cool that Members of Congress are experimenting with Twitter and personally paying attention to the tweets landing in their in boxes. This situation probably can’t last. It’s incumbent on all of us to figure out what comes next.

The arrival of multimedia closely followed by social media on the web has dramatically altered the political media ecology. However its impact is still unmeasured and therefore under appreciated in its breadth and scope.

Let me explain: If I was to recommend a movie or restaurant to you, you’d be more likely or inclined to go to see it or eat there than if you read a review or saw an ad. This works the same in politics. One of the primary ways political opinion is formed in our country is through people talking to each other.
They do so in the most ordinary of places like around a dining table, around a water cooler in the office, on a park bench, local bar, VFW hall, etc.
In these conversations people share their perspectives, their fears, their aspirations, and their prejudices regarding the candidates, the parties, and the issues they stand for. This dynamic happened in the election of 2008 the same way it has for over two hundred years of US democracy.

But I have proof that something is different this time around. My 82 year Dad called me up about 8 months before election day and asked me to come over to his house and help him figure out how to send more than one e mail at a time. When I got there and looked over his shoulder, I discovered that he was e mailing his 50 friends a note that said “Watch This” and a link to a Barack Obama youtube video.

Now in all previous elections, my Dad would have voiced his support for some issue or candidate at a dinner table, or at the gym, or at the office if the subject came up. But if it did not come up he would not have picked up phone the to suggest to his friends how to vote, nor would mailed them flyers, He would have considered these acts as intrusive. But here he was at 82 years of age becoming a 21st century political pamphleteer without even knowing it. He was able to reach 50 friends in one afternoon even with one e mail at a time whereas it would have taken him 18 months or more to have face to face conversations with the same 50 in the various places they might meet.

So for a candidate or any political campaign to succeed, you definitely need money. However, e mail is just one way to collect it. If campaigns thought of themselves more like a media operations than just a vehicle for a politician to raise money and get people to the polls, they would be producing tons of fawning but detailed content that their supporters would distribute for them at no cost which at the same time helps build community. You see money is the by product of community not just a product of e mail solicitations.

In addition by becoming media operations and creating authentic and compelling content, campaigns will have a chance to take advantage the economies of abundance that the internet offers and limit the need to live in the economy of scarcity where ideas get turned into sound bites in newspapers and on television and half the people you are trying to reach are not even paying attention.

Lastly, this is all brand new and we don’t have any way of really predicting what the new rules of engagement with electoral politics will be next cycle or next century. However one thing is certain: Power will come to the people or campaigns that are the most networked not the ones with just the most money.