Pres­i­dent Obama, who’s known for his social media savvy, held the first-​​ever Twitter Town Hall meeting last week, where he answered the public’s ques­tions about taxes, jobs and the economy. Dan Kennedy, an asso­ciate pro­fessor of jour­nalism, is an expert in news reporting and social net­works. Here, he dis­cusses Obama’s choice to engage the public through Twitter, and the use of social media by pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates and journalists.