How digitally engaged are our elected politicians?

There are 187 elected members in the Connecticut General Assembly. 151 in the House of Representatives, and 36 in the Senate.

Each one of them has a government-supplied email address. But how many of them actually respond to the emails they receive? Better yet, how many of them even check their inbox? Assistants don't count.

If a recent experiment of mine is to be taken seriously, the answer is not many. About 24.

We know they are busy. But we elect them to represent us, and with all the technology and social media tools we have here at the dawn of 2012, there hasn't been an easier time in the history of politics to connect with and communicate with the people you represent on a large scale.

According to Facebook, the social networking site is home to more than 800 million active users. I'm curious how many of those are elected officials that use it as a tool to reach and engage the communities they are responsible for.

After New Haven Mayor John DeStefano announced his proposal last week to allow non-citizens to vote in the city's municipal elections, I composed a short poll for the New Haven Register and emailed it to every single member of the Connecticut General Assembly. Since they will be voting on DeStefano's proposal next year, we wanted to report to our readers the state legislation's stance on this controversial issue.

I embedded a Google Spreadsheet fed automatically with their individual responses on the Register website so readers could see responses as they were sent back to us.

So, how many responded? Only 6 the first day. We have 24 at the time of this posting, with a handful of new ones each day that passes.

My new blog

Well, it's official. I've been named Assistant Managing Editor for Disruption of Journal Register Company's Connecticut newsrooms.

How can I possibly outlive a title like that? For starters, I figured I needed a more professional blog than the one where I complain about trivial things (that I stopped updating) and the one where I upload downloadable mp3s of awesome bands to rave about trivial things (that I stopped updating).

I have a great fascination and respect for how digital media has affected disrupted the business of traditional media -- particularly the news biz and music biz. Here, I will be writing, reporting, testing and theorizing about all that noise, and what instruments we need or can use to make lasting music of it.

And certainly, I plan to write and open up about the disruptions and innovations we're working on in Journal Register Connecticut. Hope you follow along, and join in the conversations I plan on having here.