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White House Joins Facebook, MySpace, Twitter
theodp writes "The official White House Blog called the move WhiteHouse 2.0 as the Obama administration unveiled its membership in a trio of the social-networking leaders: Facebook (157,606 fans and counting), MySpace (174,817 friends and counting) and Twitter (34,612 followers and counting)."
It may be partially about transparency in government, but it's much more about the perpetual campaign season. These days, politicians are always campaigning. The new mantra is it's never too early to start campaigning for the next race.
The Obama administration will use these tools to release a constant stream of positive spin. In the old days, Presidents had to rely on weekly radio addresses that no one listened to, daily press briefings that no one listened to, and press conferences that either happened too infrequently to sustain a message or so frequently that people got sick of them.
Now, with these services, the administration has the opportunity to campaign continuously in a low-key and less intrusive way that will, they hope, be more effective. Time will tell how well it works.
Sure, but the active campaigning was usually reserved for the campaign season, meaning the several months before an election. The rest of the time was spent governing, albeit doing so in a way that would play well with the electorate come campaign time.
Now, it's all about "managing the message" and staying in campaign mode all the time. It's not about doing things that will "play well in Peoria", it's about constantly reinforcing the message that whatever it is you're doing is good for the people. It's the difference between doing the people's work and making sure the people think whatever it is you're doing is the people's work.