Michael Xenos
As the clocks struck exactly 12:00 noon on January 20th, most people were probably watching Itzhak Perlman, Yo Yo Ma, and others perform "Air and Simple Gifts." A few pointy-headed types may have been wondering or debating whether President Obama was already the President or not, given the provisions of the 20th Amendment. But hardcore nerds were tuning their browsers into www.whitehouse.gov, which at that time was completing its transition to its new, Obama Administration form. In this post, I offer a few comments on the new presidential web presence, and the 44th president's use of new media more broadly, within the context of presidential politics.
The new whitehouse.gov site offers a number of indications that President Obama's reputation as a "new media politician" will be further stoked by his administration's management of that piece of cyberspace that has been the presidential web portal since 1997. First off, the site now features a blog and offers weekly video addresses that will likely be popular among those who have become accustomed to viewing and sharing video snippets of all kinds on sites like YouTube.com. In one of the first entries to the blog, Macon Phillips, the Director of New Media for the White House announces a tripartite vision for the new president's new media strategy that centers on Communication, Transparency, and Participation. Under that last heading, a key feature of the site is a policy of publishing all non-emergency legislation to the site for five days, in a format that enables direct public comments. For example, at the time of this writing, one can now view the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009, better known as the State Children's Health Insurance Program or SCHIP, and fill out a form to submit up to 500 characters of comment. It's not like the comment threads you might imagine from reading popular blog sites, but it does directly solicit citizen input in a unique new format.
However, by way of the Wayback Machine, one may find a number of strands of continuity between this new whitehouse.gov and previous incarnations, beneath the overarching sheen of "change" and Obama's image as a new media politician. For example, most text is rendered in very official tones, with the President appearing largely through images and re-posting of formal speeches and written documents, such as his first presidential proclamation. Additionally, the proposed system of soliciting public feedback on non-emergency legislation aside, the blog and other parts of the sites are noticeably comment-free. In that sense, although we have yet to see how they will materialize over time, many of the interactive parts of the site could end up functioning much the same as the "White House Interactive" section of the Bush administration's version of the site, where selected comments received answers from staffers, often on questions as simple as 'What number president is George W. Bush?'
To be fair, this is the official website of the President after all, and not an online journal or a MySpace profile. One would certainly be surprised to find a "Wall" on the front of whitehouse.gov, or a feature enabling fellow users to "poke" one another. Somewhat greater possibilities, closer to those just mentioned, may be envisioned in President Obama's recently announced organizing website, Organizing for America, which seems to be the main vehicle through which the administration will work with its vast network of supporters who provided information in some form during the primary and general election campaigns in order to help build support for its political objectives. As Scott mentioned in a recent post, even in a world where the President and a majority of both Houses of Congress favor a policy, there are many points at which the brakes can still be applied. Tools such as this recently announced site are part of the process by which Presidents try to work around such potentialities.
Although presidents have been "Going Public" (to use Kernell's phrase) for some time, if the Obama administration leverages this information to its fullest potential, it may be able to create a permanent campaign of the hypermedia variety. This would offer a new version of the presidential practice of bypassing traditional political bargaining and strategy by pressing their case directly to the public. This means sophisticated microtargeting of particular appeals for action to people who care deeply about a specific issue, perhaps only in districts or states connected to specifically chosen members of Congress. Far more efficient than the traditional notion of going public largely through broadcast television, this route offers unprecidented efficiency, potentially applying political pressure exactly where needed (and not elsewhere), without straining the patience of those in the database who may not care about the specific issue at hand (thus saving them a lot of email fatigue, and preserving their enthusiasm for other initiatives). Call it "Going Public 2.0" if you will.
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