President Obama: most in touch world leader thanks to the Web
Politicians are a cunning bunch – becoming everyone’s best friend at election time to get elected before retreating to their elected offices and ignoring everyone’s wishes once they are. But the new U.S. President, Barack Obama looks set to change all that, embracing new technologies, and the Internet in particular, in order to reach out and actually have a two-way conversation with the people he is serving.
Not all politicians are lazy good-for-nothings who will do anything to get elected and then sitting on their backsides for the next four years, but most are. And while no-one can accuse any American president of being lazy, some have done the bare minimum while others have actually fought to change the world for the better.
We don’t yet know what kind of President Obama will be, but everything points towards him being the latter and also a president of the people. His brilliant election campaign showed the way in which he is likely to lead the most powerful country in the world, listening to people’s opinions and sharing his ideals and aims with as many people as possible.
His election campaign saw Obama embrace the Web in ways no other presidential hopeful or world leader has ever done before. Obama had a regularly updated Twitter page, a Facebook page, a YouTube channel and more. He reached out via the Internet and found millions of people desperate for a stake in changing the country.
And with this strategy clearly working so well in helping Obama become president, it’s likely to continue once he’s in office. Web 2.0 may be becoming an overused term but the new president’s use of the Web has been officially dubbed Obama 2.0.
Presidents of old would offer one-way communication, going on television to keep the public updated on where the country was headed and what state it was in. The only real method of attaining feedback were the hardly scientific polls which really only quantified whether the people were sick of their leader yet or not.
The new president looks set to offer a new way of doing things: two-way communication. Obama will not dictate to the American public what is happening but converse with them about what everyone as a whole can achieve. And this will be done via the Web, with weekly addresses to the nation on YouTube, updates on Facebook, and interactive features on Obama’s Web sites.
Democracy really only means having an election every few years but that doesn’t mean the elected leaders should then stop listening to the voters who put them in office in the meantime. I’m hoping Obama will carry on the good work which was begun in his election campaign and offer a real slice of democracy, actually taking on board people’s views.
[Via CNN]
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January 16th, 2009
More gushing Euro-love for Presidential Idol. How about letting him serve a bit first? Considering he hasn’t even finished his single Senate term and has never had executive experience all this build up has set the bar impossibly high.
January 16th, 2009
“while no-one can accuse any American president of being lazy ”
What a load of crap,
Unless your talking about all the time spent keeping lobbyists happy, that comment doesnt really work does it ?
Dave really you should move to america and become a yank. Cause you obviously need their approval to get by in life,
January 16th, 2009
Also hardly the most in touch leader in the world, have you gone country to country and studied their leader ?
No so maybe you shold shut up and stop writing your crap headlines, and actually think about what your writing, Australia’s Kevin Rudd gives obama a run for his money for example, and sh*t thats just 2 countries, you have another 150 or so to go through,
Please someone fire Dave Parrack.