On Thursday, January 27, 2011, President Obama will once again connect with the nation in that time-honored fashion: he’s having a Youtube party! After numerous events including Yahoo discussions and Twitter-side chats, the nation’s Youtube users will be able to submit questions and hope they will make it through to our president (Twitter questions are also being incorporated into the Youtube event; unfortunately Chatroulette users will have to put their pants on and switch over to one of those sites if they want to become involved). Senior Presidential Advisor David Plouffe noted that "[t]hroughout the week, we'll have plenty of ways for you to get involved and ask questions of President Obama and other senior administration officials about the State of the Union address.”
While the effort to reach out is laudable in its conception, denizens of the internet may want to consider something: this seemingly fresh approach to communicating with the public has its roots in a long-standing tradition. Historically, politicians have always seized upon emerging media outlets to disseminate their message rather than to truly engage.
In 1800, Thomas Jefferson used the first “presidential newspaper,” the National Intelligencer, as a platform to communicate his ideas and vilify federalists ahead of a contentious election. Ten years after the first State of the Union was broadcast on the radio in 1923, Franklin Roosevelt used radio to deliver his famed Fireside Chats, a landmark moment in the relationship between government and the governed in the U.S. In an article from the Journal of Communication, DM Ryfe reminds us that Roosevelt used common language in these chats both to “close the perceptual gap between him and his mass audience,” and define the terms of what the relationship between a politician and his constituents should be (citation below). Sound at all familiar?
We know that State of the Union addresses are unique opportunities to involve the public in the political discourse. It is that rare moment to hear the president’s book report on America without a barrage of politically charged questions and postures. What may ring true about the push to expand the dialogue surrounding Obama’s second State of the Union might be taken with a grain of salt, however.
In an article for Presidential Studies Quarterly, Jason Barbaras discusses the influence of the media on the public during these kinds of addresses. He states that while the public is generally more informed and interested during these times, they are far more knowledgeable about items that are heavily covered in the media (citation below). With major media outlets struggling to cover salient topics objectively, it begs some deep consideration of how we are digesting information in today's saturated age.
The central question to consider with this online exchange, then, will regard how distilled the dialogue will really be. Much like the first time he did this, Obama will answer the questions that received the most votes – but there is little information available regarding the actual screening process beyond this. It is important to remember the well-documented history of American presidents and their efforts to shape the discourse to their liking. Jefferson ostensibly created his own newspaper to spread his word on his terms. Is it possible Mr. Obama will chart the same course?
It will be interesting to see what shape this Youtube session will take. Is this a moment for new media to emerge as a true counterbalance to selective-reporting mainstream media outlets? And will this have a similarly influential (and potentially democratizing) effect on the public’s engagement in the political? And what about people that don't have access to the internet: the homeless, the economically depressed, the luddites? How do we incorporate their voices into the discussion - or have we forgotten about them in all the exciting techno-hubbub? Stay tuned to find out.
Ryfe, D. (1999), Franklin Roosevelt and the fireside chats. Journal of Communication, 49: 80–103. doi: 10.1111/j.1460-2466.1999.tb02818.x
BARABAS, J. (2008), Presidential Policy Initiatives: How the Public Learns about State of the Union Proposals from the Mass Media. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 38: 195–222. doi: 10.1111/j.1741-5705.2008.02636.x
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