I am pleased to announce the launch of sociopolitical.org, what I believe is the Internet’s most complete and easily accessible data set of the social media accounts of elected members of the U.S. Congress.

Sociopolitical.org allows the public to search by representative name or by state, and receive hyperlinks to representatives’ official accounts.  The site contains a dynamic map and search features.  In addition, we have created a social media index score which rates representatives based on the number of social media websites utilized.

We hope to obtain funding to expand the project to include the ability for users to type in their home address and have a message formatted for Twitter or Facebook automatically tagging the users’ representatives.

Please visit sociopolitical.org and provide comments/feedback on my blog at https://adam.commons.gc.cuny.edu.

I am saddened at the situation between Israel and Gaza. While studying the situation, I came upon a CNN report that absolutely stunned me. Apparently, Israel’s IDF (@IDFSpokesperson) and The Hamas (@AlqassamBrigade) are using twitter to provoke each other. They have been through a serious of direct exchanges to threaten and taunt each other. They have also used twitter in an attempt to sway public opinion by reporting on current military successes and casualties.

While I would expect each side to publish articles and stories for public relations, I am quite shocked to see them directly interacting in such fashion.

Here is the link to the CNN article:

“Will Twitter war become the new norm?”

http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/15/tech/social-media/twitter-war-gaza-israel/index.html