State Department using new media in new ways

As a result of a State Department sponsored trip to Iraq, how you access and use Twitter and the like may be about to radically change.

Jared Cohen, part of the Secretary's Policy Planning Staff at the State Department, traveled with the new-media delegation and tells FederalNewsRadio he saw change as it happened.

Twitter's founder, Jack Dorsey, has been working with the mobile companies out there to establish a short code so that Iraqis can get on Twitter without actually having to have access to the internet.

While only about five percent of Iraqis have internet access at home and electric blackouts are routine, nearly everyone has a cellphone. Most even have two or three cellphones.

"Now what's interesting," says Cohen, "is you're starting to see - you see this in places like Africa and other parts of the developing world - you're starting to see internet completely skip computers and go straight to mobile phones. You see this with about 700,000 mobile phones in Iraq, but that country, because of high mobile prevalence has tremendous potential to get a lot of people online for the first time over a mobile phone instead of a computer."

In a post-Saddam society, Cohen says connectivity will be one of the keys to success.

"I'm a strong believer in the fact that access drives innovation. In order for young people to have their innovative minds tapped into, they need to have access to the tools to do it, and I believe that cellphones and the internet will bring that."

-----
On the Web:

FederalNewsRadio - Hillary Clinton, e-diplomat, embraces new media

State - Dipnote blog

Twitter - Dipnote on Twitter

(Copyright 2009 by FederalNewsRadio.com. All Rights Reserved.)