President 2.0?
Gene Policinski recently wrote a column entitled “Digital Revolution” about how Obama effectively used “New Media” (the Internet and various Web 2.0 technologies) to help him win the Presidency. The article, not available online, also briefly highlights the notion that “The way we interact with news has fundamentally changed. People want to talk back. People want to feel as if they’re represented.”
In my opinion, Obama’s campaign was especially effective at reaching out to the disenfranchised. After all, “People want to feel as if they’re represented.” Whether using traditional channels or “New Media,” his campaign was based on his image as the “man of the people.” He portrayed himself in stark contrast to McCain, a candidate he painted as the next George Bush and a candidate who would serve the interests of big business and the rich more so than “the people.”
Using “New Media” he made the grass roots movement part of his campaign. He became a candidate of the people and a candidate for change. This message of change and use of “New Media,” media in which people can “talk back,” developed into a synergistic force that propelled Obama into the national spotlight and gave him the funds to remain front and center. He then minimized mistakes, deflected Republican attacks, and repeated his message of change over and over using both New and Old media. In many ways, his success was more about the message than the technology.
There was also an interesting Newsweek opinion piece that highlighted the fact that by leveraging “New Media” in his campaign for change, Obama has left a blueprint for others to use to mobilize the masses. Campaigns in Israel and Britain are implementing the same strategies that Obama used to great effectiveness. The author is also concerned about the use of these strategies for ill. It seems that these technologies can also be used to spread terror.
Of most interest, though, is the issue of how to control the masses once they have been mobilized—how to keep them on one’s side. Because as an Obama aid states followers are “no longer on the sidelines bitching, no longer just sending the shrill petition…You have this fire hose of activism, whether by way of funding, getting out the vote, sending letters to Congress …"
Like Gutenberg’s press, “New Media” gives a voice to the people. This voice can be pro-establishment or anti-establishment. For example, one individual poster on Mybarackobama.com had this to say about Obama: “Like many longtime Obama supporters, I am growing increasingly troubled over what appears to be a developing pattern of compromise that is making Mr. Obama appear more and more like every other politician that we've seen for the past few decades." It seems that content on this technology must be censored (as Gutenberg’s press was) or at least managed if rulers will remain in power uncontested.
And this then becomes the question: is this really President 2.0? Only time will tell, but the same tools that Obama has used to spread his message of change could as easily be used against him once he’s in power. Although, by the same token, if this is President 2.0, he could continue to use them to gather feedback on what the “Joe the Plumber” really wants out of Washington.
Update: See the Web 2.0 writings of fellow CICS scholars Lindsey Smith, Julie Byrd, and Anisha Chandrasekaran
References
Dickey, C. Revolution 2.0. Retrieved November 30, 2008, from http://www.newsweek.com/id/170796/page/1
Policinski, G. (2008, November 27). Digital revolution. Asbury Park Press, C2.