President-elect Donald Trump will continue to tweet after Inauguration Day, because "he has this direct pipeline in the American people, where he can talk back and forth," incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer told Rhode Island news station WPRI.
"I think that his use of social media is gonna be something that's never been seen before," Spicer said, adding that Trump's engagement with supporters via social media will be "a really exciting part of the job."
Trump has almost 40 million combined followers on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Spicer said this "allows him to add an element of a conversation that's never occurred," adding that "he can put his thoughts out and hear what they're thinking in a way that no one's ever been able to do before."
Critics have said Trump's communicating via Twitter can often be unpresidential, especially when he reacts to issues that most presidents have found beneath them, such as his slamming the spoof of him on "Saturday Night Live," or uses it as a means of conducting foreign policy rather than through more traditional measures.
Just a few days ago, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, however, praised Trump's ability to get his point across in 140 characters, telling "Fox News Sunday" program, "We might as well get used to it. This is who he is.
"It's how he's gonna operate, whether it's brilliant or stupid. He beat 16 rivals, then he beat Hillary Clinton, and he beat the elite media. He ain't giving it up."
But other critics have pointed out that while they have no problem with social media as a way of communicating with the public, it should not be at the expense of press conferences, CNN noted.
Press conferences are still important, because they show a president engaged in a spontaneous exchange with a roomful of knowledgeable and often adversarial people, rather than the controlled atmosphere of social media or a president selecting individual journalists with whom he gives interviews, CNN points out.