Posts Tagged ‘obama’
This little logo, which has suddenly cropped up on Obama’s Change.gov Transition webpage, could mean a whole lot.
Small, but powerful.
What’s it mean? It means that Change.gov’s copyright policy is now operating under Creative Commons, the same copyright policy adopted by popular sharing sites like Flickr — which, incidentally, is also where the Obama camp decided to exclusively publish its behind-the-scenes photographs from Election Night.
And not only did Change.gov take up the Internet’s preferred copyright policy, but it also adopted its most permissive policy, according to the fine folks at CC.
So what does all of this mean? It means that Barack Obama and his administration understand that the Internet is not something that can be corraled and controlled, and attempting to do so will just invite discord and willful mayhem from those they attempt to shut out. Any person who hopes to see the country’s first “Internet President” establish a healthy relationship with the Information Superhighway should be encouraged by this small, but significant, development.
If you throw in the fact that Obama has moved the weekly Presidential addresses onto YouTube, and that he’s currently wrangling with the Secret Service about finding a way for him to be able to keep his BlackBerry while in Office, you’re beginning to paint a picture of a President who really “gets” how information is treated and functions in this modern age. Now we just need to wait and see how that high-tech understanding translates into an administration.
As evidenced by the heap of articles Garrett recommended for us to read regarding how the Obama administration can, should, or needs to take advantage of the Internet as a key component of their upcoming administration, there’s a lot of consideration going into how our first “Internet President” is going to go on-line.
While it remains unclear exactly how the Internet will be used (it’s unlikely Obama will completely open the information floodgates in true Web 2.0 fashion, as evidenced by the recent slimming of his agenda on change.gov), it does appear that Obama plans to use the Web as a way to reach out to voters. For example, he’s already released his first YouTube address, devoted to the economic crisis:
And he’s said he plans to supplement the traditional weekly Presidential address with a YouTube companion.
While this is all well and good, the far more interesting (and far more unknown) piece to this puzzle is not how the Obama administration will contact the American public with the Internet, but how the opposite will work: In what ways will the administration encourage voters to contact them?
Obviously, the Internet can be a bit of a Wild West-type of place where the combination of an easily disseminated message and relatively complete anonymity means the inmates can sometimes burn the asylum to the ground. Take the RNC’s recent efforts to weigh ideas from the public on how to rebuild the party brand:
That being said, when it comes to giving the American people a voice in the upcoming administration, the Obama camp is going to have to determine what type of a balance they want to strike between making it easy and attractive to weigh in on various government goings-ons, and making it so easy that Internet shenanigans may ensue, defeating the entire purpose.
Sarah the Solderor?
Oh, and don’t miss the Polar Palin video game.
The Weird and Somewhat Unsettling:
The Emancipation Elucidation
I know we were given the awesome task for tracking down some exclusively pro-McCain voter-generated content, and I think I found some. Assuming this can qualify as “pro” McCain, and not some subversive reverse psychology:
For lack of anything more unifying, a presidential election is about as close to a widespread American activity where as many our countrymen engage in the same activity as it gets, even though it “officially” amounts to punching a hole in a piece of paper at your local VFW hall, and the fact that the Super Bowl may give it a run for its money. Either way, I’m hard pressed to come up with another single event that can unite as many disparate groups of Americans in a single endeavor — namely, trying their hardest (even if that’s not very hard at all) to defeat each other in an ideological Chad War. Black America, white America, rich people, poor people, war veterans, Code Pink; aside from a few scurrilous ne’er-do-wells, members of each of these groups actually show up on Election Day and engage in the same activities, even if they each do it with their own special flair.
That being said, while Here Comes Everybody is about the great uniting power of the Internet as a communicative and social-network developing tool, about the Facebooks and MySpaces and whatnot, when it comes to politics, I almost feel like politics, at least when it comes to the very heart of things that drives people to actually stand in line at their local VFW, is somewhat behind the curve.
When I think about the promise/bargain/tool situation as it pertains to both of these campaigns, it seems like the main thrust is still ideological, not technical. People support Obama because they like his promises of bringing political change to the White House, his economic populism, and any other number of reasons that a lot of people have liked a lot of Presidential candidhates over the year. People support McCain because they like his peersonal bio, his national security credentials, lather, rinse, repeat as for Obama.
When I think of the promise, why do these people agree to join into the Obama/McCain camps, it’s largely because they agree with their policies, or disagree strongly enough with the opponent’s policies, or agree largely with the policies espoused by the political party each candidate happens to represent. That’s why they agree to enter those groups.
Now, one could make the argument that the candidates in this particular lesson — Obama in particular — have been able to use technology as a way to encourage people to enter into their camp. See his campaign’s adoption of all sorts of social networking tools on his website, as well as the homegrown, viral efforts such as the “Yes We Can” video. Many of attacks about Obama’s “celebrity” coming from his opponents would more accurately be trained at the grassroots support Obama and his campaign have explicitly encouraged, not because of appearances on The Tonight Show (which McCain has covered {Celebrity Building 1.0}). So while the weapons have changed, the battle remains the same — for now.
JourNoggin 