US President elect, Barack Obama, has finally spoken out about the crisis in Gaza, saying: “The loss of civilian life in Gaza and in Israel is a source of deep concern for me.” But, for some, his comments are too little and too late.
The Guardian’s Simon Tisdall - not one for rash pronouncements - had already questioned the Obama’s ”keep shtum” strategy, suggesting that his silence may give the impression he either “shares [George] Bush’s bias [in favour of Israel] or simply does not care.” This image, surely, would be unthinkable for the man voted in on a platform of “change” and of reaching out to a world divided by US foreign policy. And how would Obama’s delayed response play in the Arab world?
Middle East-based English language news source, Al Jazeera, was on Obama’s case before the close of 2008, quoting Mark Perry, Washington Director of the Conflicts Forum group with the damning: “Silence sounds like complicity”.
According not only to protocol but, apparently, also to the US constitutution, there is ”only one president at at time”, so hampering anything Obama may actually want to say on the Gaza situation.
Problem is, those looking for the soon-to-be leader of the free world to take action - or at least take a stance - are not interested in presidential protocol.
Saying something or saying nothing: before he has the elected authority to do anything about it, neither is a palatable option for Obama on an issue as complex as Israel and the Palestinians.
But from his 20 January inauguration, his credibility and fulfilling of the promise he presented at election time will hang on talking and acting clearly and quickly.
Credit where its due. David Cameron was on a tour of Manchester yesterday to feel people’s pain in this economic whirlwind.
As well as the usual interview with local paper and TV news, Cameron maxed out on multi-media, including an attempt to connect to Manchester’s social media glitterati via a live blog with queen bee, Sarah Hartley aka @Foodie Sarah, aka Manchester Evening News journalist, and a debate on the economy with a live audience and Tweeted/texted/emailed questions through Channel M, Manchester’s cable news channel.
To be fair this wasn’t Cameron’s idea. The Channel M format was the MEN’s idea (owners of Channel M) and the live blogging was Sarah’s own initiative, but it’s telling that Cameron’s team were happy to play ball. Eighteen months ago the minders would have felt it was too risky for not enough reward. Don’t forget the Tories also ‘reached out’ to Birmingham bloggers around their conference in October, although I’m not sure to what extent the Tory big-hitters really got behind it.
I’ve spent the last two years advising brands, public sector, NGOs and individual politicians about social media strategy, web 2.0, e-pr, whatever you want to call it. Everybody has heard how powerful it is but there’s sometimes confusion about how and why to do it. ROI is an issue. How many people will see it? Should we be sending our press releases to these people?
The only way to make the case is to try a bit and get comfortable or to see case studies that you can relate to. The benefit of the Obama coverage-fest that we’ve had for the last few months, which is still at fever pitch, (PS how many people have the beeb had out there?!) is that there’s such detailed analysis of how he used new media to connect people, talk to them in their language and motivate them. There’s endless media case studies and experts stepping forward on mainstream media to talk about it.
Social media helped win the biggest competition in the World. Social media has grown up.
And the best bit is that this story keeps going. I posted last week about how Obama could take this into a whole new way of running the country. Within hours of his victory he’d launched this site. A clear indicator that social media will play some part in running the most powerful country on the globe.
Maverick internet browser Firefox has just released a plug-in that simulates the great firewall of China. Users who add the Firefox China Channel to their browser can experience what it is like to surf the internet from inside the republic.
This is much more than a gimmick. The web is seen as the borderless, global and free but it isn’t. We have just seen the power of social networking in the campaign for the leadership of the so-called free world but your access to the internet depends on where you live. States like China filter and block content that they don’t want citizens to access.
The Firefox China Channel experience is fascinating if you are not one of the 1.3 billion people for whom it is standard pre-selected web-fare. The so-called Golden Shield Project is policed in China by an estimated 30,000 strong task force who deny access to politically sensitive or regime critical content. For those of us that followed and in some ways even participated in the US presidential election process via the internet it is important to remember that the net is not free for all.
As soon as the polls start to close this evening the world will hear tha Obama has won the popular vote in the US presidential election and will take the electoral college with a landslide victory. PR Media Blog is ‘calling’ the vote at 14.42 GMT well ahead of polls closing.
Since the 1990s the media have had the ability to accurately predict the popular vote which has meant that we don’t have to wait for the votes to be counted to know the outcome. But in the last two presidential run offs, the vote has been close and in 2000 the votes were so close that it was days before the supreme court ruling resulted in the Bush victory over Al Gore.
This year the margin of victory will be significant and we can be fairly certain because the social web has provided ordinary people with the tools to predict the outcome. Take the site Iftheworldcouldvote. On the surface it is a bit of fun allowing anyone around the world to cast a vote and showing how different countries would cast their ballots. One of the coutries is the USA and in effect this is a poll that shows Obama gaining almost 80% of the vote. OK the poll is biased towards the web literate and in theory voters could post multiple ballots, but this is a sample size of over a quarter of a million and the margin is enormous.
If we are to believe conventional media there are enough swing states and undecided voters to keep the race open but this is simply not the case. Newspapers, radio and TV want to keep us guessing, because that is what will deliver circulation and audience but the social web is telling us the America has decided and Obama will be the 44th president of the United States.
The United States presidential election has been the first major democratic process anywhere in the world where the use of social media has played a significant part in communications.
Of the eighteen candidates running in the primaries for the two main parties, nine had blogs, including both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Involvement in social networks was significant from the earliest days. Republican Mitt Romney was the first prospective candidate to launch a Facebook profile, Democrat John Edwards set up a campaign headquarters in the cyber world of Second Life. This resulted in a bizarre web 2.0 event when it was vandalised by the avatars of his political opponents. Clinton used her web site to launch her campaign.
It was Barack Obama though who was the prime mover from the outset. He engaged with most of the high profile social networking sites including MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Twitter. On the day that Barack Obama announced he was forming a presidential exploratory committee in January 2007, student government co-ordinator Farouk Olu Aregbe created a group on Facebook called “One Million Strong for Barack”. The social web was critical to the Obama campaign in another fundamental way. It played an important part in the funding of his bid for office. In a campaign video directed at his supporters he said “Instead of forcing us to rely on millions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs, you’ve fuelled this campaign with donations of $5, $10, $20, whatever you can afford, and because you did, we’ve built a grassroots movement of over 1.5 million Americans.” Obama’s success raising money via these small donations was achieved in a way never before possible as part of a U.S. presidential election campaign.
The 1960 election of John F Kennedy was thought to be point at which television became central to the democratic process. 2008 may well be the year that sees the critical intervention of the social web
Google has taken a huge amount of campaign dollars in this Presidential election and its argued that the two candidates that have made best use of it are the two chosen by their Parties to fight it out on Nov 4th.
Both McCain and Obama spent big and early on paid search. Anyone that searched for particular terms that were closely associated with either campaign during the primary season would have found sponsored links to Obama or McCain sites. The main objective was to start to build up list of supporters’ email addresses. People who you get to to do things and give you money! Hillary Clinton came in late to this tactic and suffered for it with a much smaller volunteer list.
The key is to keep an eye on search trends and ensure you are responding properly with your Ad Word messages and where you point people to. This is current data from Hitwise on search trends. It shows people are no longer researching issues, they are looking for where to vote. What you’ll see is both campaigns geo-targeting information on polling stations, help to get there and last minute messaging like this.
There’s been some comment on the web about a dossier put out by Labour’s new improved spin machine. It’s a very detailed research document put out by Labour to act as material for the media to ‘balance’ any reporting of Tory economic policy and announcements that come out of Osborne’s office. Juicy red meat to be used in the ‘baiting game’ so eagerly pursued by the lobby.
What’s interesting here is that this dossier is the SEVENTH to be put out by Labour but only the first to be picked up by the press. There were others on tax, crime and health with a strong media relations campaign undertaken by Party HQ during Party Conference season. But no interest, not even a side-bar against various shadow ministers’ policy pronouncements.
This tells us that the atmosphere is changing somewhat. There’s an appetite to scrutinise Cameron now and the press, which hunts as a pack, is after Osborne.
My good friend Alex Hilton is in New York at the moment, helping with the Obama campaign. He’s drawn on his experiences for his PR Week column (published tomorrow) and makes the point that Obama’s successes in engaging with people and making them feel part of his campaign provide the mouthwatering prospect that he could import these principles into the White House.
Everyone said it was inevitable that young people wouldn’t vote and people of all ages would think of politicians as remote, elitist and ‘not like them’. Obama has changed that. He’s lowered the barriers and enabled supporters to participate, own a bit of the campaign and reach each other. Its a relationship story with the internet as the facilitator.
Obama can similarly destroy the other accepted wisdom that politicans govern in ivory towers, society as we used to know it is disintegrating and we are all powerless against the ’system’.
For an Obama government there will be greater expectations on feedback and accountability. Ideas being suggested include online forums where the public can comment on legislation, YouTube townhall style meetings where citizens can question the President and an enlightened approach to sharing information and asking people to contribute at local level to achieving improvements in their own communities.
A point made by Rebecca Knight in the FT was that he was recreating the intimacy developed by FDR’s fireside chats with the nation, seeking support from the public for his New Deal measures to revive the economy. Old principles applied in a modern setting!
Lots of potential here to take the use and knowledge of social media to a new level amongst the mass population. Lets just hope he gets elected:)
Imagine my surprise when a video from a US cable news outlet popped into my inbox, containing a news report blaming ME for Barack Obama losing the US election!
It’s absolutely brilliant and is a Get Out The Vote (GOTV) initiative from the Democrat leaning MoveOn.org, an organisation set up in the late 90s to drive people behind particular causes by using the potential of online communities.
You watch it, can’t believe how clever it is, send it on to loads of your friends and probably largely people who wouldn’t want McCain to win.
Ok, ok , I realise I don’t have a vote in this election but if you and me would be motivated to pass this on, imagine how many folk in the US would.
