After enjoying substantial support from the younger voters in last November’s election, the Obama administration is pressing its advantage by opening a blog, White House 2.0 and participating in MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. -DB
Suffolk Media Law
May 2, 2009
By Denise Ouellet
The White House revealed new social networking efforts today that include participation on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter as well as a new blog, White House 2.0. Followers on all of the sites are growing rapidly. Currently the White House has almost 100,000 Facebook friends since launching this afternoon.
The site also has links to White House content on FlickR, YouTube, iTunes and Vimeo. The sites are already filled with official White House photos and videos.
President Obama said that participation in social networking sites is something the government is trying out as a possible way to reach the public quickly and efficiently, especially in situations like the swine flu outbreak which require a consistent dissemination of reliable information.
In his comments on the blog, Obama said, “Technology has profoundly impacted how — and where — we all consume information and communicate with one another. WhiteHouse.gov is an important part of the Administration’s effort to use the Internet to reach the public quickly and effectively.”
The Obama administration has been vocal about its efforts to create more transparency in the government. As previously discussed, they’ve encouraged other public figures to the same. They’ve even encouraged Congressmen to set up Twitter accounts.
Although some will argue that these sites are just more ways for the government to tell us what it wants to hear, I think it’s great that the government is acknowledging these communications tools for the valuable mechanisms that they are. This is how people communicate these days, especially younger generations who have grown up on computers. Rather than continuing along with only traditional avenues of communication, the administration is embracing the tools and the communities that have built up around them and I think it’s a great start.
Copyright 2009 Suffolk Media Law