Blogging &Media &Social Media 22 Jan 2009 06:28 pm
President Obama & Technology
It’s no question that Barack Obama is our most technologically savvy President. From his campaign to planning the first few days of his presidency, he has used more technology than any President in our nation’s past.
President Obama raised $750 million for his campaign mainly by using the Internet; this is six times more money than any prior presidential candidate has raised.
The most effective way that the Obama campaign used the Internet was through Social Media. Many believe that his victory over John McCain in November was partly due to the use of social media. The Obama campaign was far more effective of the two presidential candidates in terms of using social media as a way to engage and motivate voters.
Start with blogs. There were close to 500 million blog postings that mentioned President Obama since the end of August while McCain was mentioned about 150 million times.
On MySpace, Obama had 844,927 friends compared to McCain’s 219,404. Between November 3rd and 4th, Obama gained over 10,000 new friends while McCain gained 964.
President Obama also held the lead on Twitter with 118,107 followers while McCain had 4,942.
Even with the campaign finished, President Obama is still using the same means of communicating that helped lead to his presidential victory. The website change.gov has the Obama administration asking the US public to share its stories and goals.
A big issue in the media is whether or not he was going to be able to keep his beloved BlackBerry. It is believed that he should not be able to use the device due to security issues. The messages he sends and receives could be intercepted; his account could easily be hacked into, no matter how strongly it is protected. The decision is not yet decided.
Obama is not the first President to question whether or not to communicate via email. Eight years ago, George W. Bush debated over the issue. He chose to stop communicating over cyberspace with the fear of his private conversations being looked at by the public.
We also have to consider when Bush made the decision to give up communicating online. Since then, the use of email has dramatically increased and BlackBerrys have become a necessity for many due to their convenience. During his campaign, President Obama’s memorandums and briefing books were rarely printed out and delivered to his home or hotel room, they were simply sent to his BlackBerry for him to review.
Even with all the controversy surrounding his use of technology, President Obama still hopes to be the first e-mailing President. He also hopes to have a laptop computer on his desk in the Oval Office; he would be the first American President to do so.
President Obama is all about change, whether or not he is able to keep his BlackBerry or have a computer in the Oval Office, he is very intent on pulling the office at least partly into the 21st century.
Amanda Deluca
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