Sunday, October 4, 2009

Barack Obama is Following Me on Twitter!

President Barack Obama’s section on the White House website includes links to how you can find him on Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, iTunes and Vimeo. That’s four social networking sites and three video/audio hosting sites, plus his main governmental website, not to mention the countless articles and fansites created about him by bloggers, fans and networkers across the world. Looking at his incredibly planful and thorough use of the internet resources available to him, two questions spring into my mind:
1. In this internet age, is the hippest and most technologically current candidate always going to be more likely to win? and
2. Does the availability of social networking sites to politicians foster a greater sense of celebrity around them, or does it make them seem more normal and accessible?

I’ll start by addressing the first, and (in my opinion), easier question. Remembering the campaign process and the outcome of the recent presidential election, I think it’s clear that Obama’s success, while he gained an advantage in many different ways and from many different groups of voters, was largely attributed to his popularity within the younger generation. And I think it’s no coincidence that he was also the candidate that was the most connected and dedicated about staying current and using all forms of media and internet networking to help with his campaign. We are entering a new age for politicians; there’s all this new internet technology available, and clearly the candidates who stay the most knowledgeable about how to use it to their advantage are going to be the ones who succeed with this generation. It’s not just Obama who’s using the internet to his advantage—John McCain’s website has links to his Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, too—but McCain is not as connected as Obama, and neither, it seems, are many other politicians. While I by no means think the use of technology and internet is the deciding factor for politicians in elections, I definitely think it is a crucially important element of any campaign, and Obama’s many web pages and resources will back me up on this one.

Now, on to the second, and probably more interesting question. Throughout the 2008 political campaign season, and even still today, many people commented on the fact that the mania present among fans of Barack Obama surpassed that of normal political supporters and became more of a celebrity-culture-type obsession. John McCain’s team even ran an ad series mocking Obama’s celebrity and comparing him to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears:




Looking at Obama’s Facebook and flickr pages, it’s clear that he’s trying to send out the message that he’s a normal guy, just one of us: his Facebook page looks like anyone else’s, right down to his “Interests” (“basketball, writing, spending time w/ kids”) and his “Relationship Status” (“Married to Michelle Obama,”) and his flickr page is chock-full of images of him looking like a family man, playing basketball and visiting a general store with his daughter. However, I wonder whether, for all of his effort to come across like a normal guy, Obama’s extensive use of popular social networking sites actually feeds the celebrity mania that surrounds him. These days, the public has access to things and information about the president they would never have had access to even 10 years ago when Clinton was president. The internet also allows for the fast and wide spread of posts, videos and websites from fans, which only adds to and builds the culture of fandom. For example, I’m sure everyone remembers the video "I've Got A Crush on Obama" video posted by a non-affiliated fan:




The video quickly became viral and circulated the web; even when Obama wasn’t trying, his presence on the internet nevertheless raised public awareness of him, even if it was in a goofy, music-video way. During this past election, among my generation, it became “cool” to like Obama and to share and post your opinions about it— maybe, in this case and others, the popularity of this video even became more about the medium of YouTube and the music video than the actual political subject matter. Constant access to seeing what politicians are up to and seeing them use the same websites that we do creates a sense that they’re just like us, but also allows more readily for people to become obsessed with politicians the way they are with movie or TV celebrities because of this constant, current exposure.

-Miranda