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Twitter is a microblogging and social networking service with millions of members and growing at a tremendous rate. With the buzz surrounding the service have come claims of its ability to transform the way people interact and share information and calls for public figures to start using the service. In this study, we are interested in the type of content that legislators are posting to the service, particularly by members of the United States Congress. We read and analyzed the content of over 6,000 posts from all members of Congress using the site. Our analysis shows that Congresspeople are primarily using Twitter to disperse information, particularly links to news articles about themselves and to their blog posts, and to report on their daily activities. These tend not to provide new insights into government or the legislative process or to improve transparency; rather, they are vehicles for self-promotion. However,Twitter is also facilitating direct communication between Congresspeople and citizens, though this is a less popular activity. We report on our findings and analysis and discuss other uses of Twitter for legislators. IntroductionTalk is cheap, except when Congress does it.Cullen Hightower Twitter (http://www.twitter.co) is a popular microblogging and social networking service with approximately 7 million members. Twitter is one of the fastest growing sites on the Web in terms of usage (one estimate puts year-over-year growth at over 1300%; http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/ online_mobile/twitters-tweet-smell-of-success/). The dramatic growth has created significant buzz about the site.Twitter supporters see it as a potential solution for many information sharing problems. One manifestation of this is the TweetCongress initiative (http://www.tweetcongress. org/). TweetCongress is a grass-roots Web-based campaign with the goal of promoting transparency in government by encouraging representatives in Congress to use Twitter. There is very little work that has studied how Twitter is used, particularly with respect to the content of the posts (Mischaud, 2008;Honey & Herring, 2009). In this study, we present a thorough analysis of how Congresspeople use the service. We look at the demographics (including party affiliation and home state), the frequency of posts, and, most important, the content of the messages they post. For this latter analysis, we analyzed the content of the vast majority of messages that had been posted by members of Congress to obtain a thorough picture of the type and intent of the messages. We have chosen not to study the underlying social network (followers, following, and friends), but this is a rich space for future work.Based on this analysis, we show that Congress members are largely using Twitter to communicate the same type of information their offices would share in other media. They post links to news articles, blog posts, and descriptions of upcoming activities and use the tweets like titles for mini press releases. Congresspeople also use Twitter in the stereotypical way...

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Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to examine the ways in which governments build social media and information and communication technologies (ICTs) into e-government transparency initiatives, to promote collaboration with members of the public and the ways in members of the public are able to employ the same social media to monitor government activities. Design/methodology/approach -This study used an iterative strategy that involved conducting a literature review, content analysis, and web site analysis, offering multiple perspectives on government transparency efforts, the role of ICTs and social media in these efforts, and the ability of e-government initiatives to foster collaborative transparency through embedded ICTs and social media. Findings -The paper identifies key initiatives, potential impacts, and future challenges for collaborative e-government as a means of transparency. Originality/value -The paper is one of the first to examine the interrelationships between ICTs, social media, and collaborative e-government to facilitate transparency.