Staying connected
Updated on 11 November 2008
Felicity Spector looks at the future of the Obama internet revolution.
Politics, they tell us, nay, the world will never be the same again. The sight of President-elect Obama, strolling across the White House lawn, was truly a sight to behold. But is this really change we can believe in or will the same old structures of power prevail?
"The most important thing you can hope for in Government", says Harvard University's Bill Purcell "is to speak to millions of people at the same time, at a moment when they're prepared to listen". And in terms of mass communication, Obama's election campaign became the sine qua non.
It amassed a vast database of some ten million names - all of them donors, supporters, or local activists, all of them prepared to get involved at some level of the campaign. They became part of something: they became a true coalition of the willing.
Ninety five people ran the internet side of things, sending out messages, appealing for funds, organising local events, encouraging footage and photos and feedback to be uploaded, so that the communication was not all one way.
The internet could just provide him with the widest and loudest bully pulpit any President has ever enjoyed.
So will Obama's administration become the first 'wired' Presidency, as the Washington Post puts it, continuing to reach out to supporters directly, a kind of Facebook for the masses?
And more importantly, what model of the internet might this new form of Government be like - Microsoft's 'Cathedral' we build it, and you will worship in it or the more democratic 'Open source', the kind of decentralised, self organised network which so many of the Obama supporters tried to adopt.
The first email to supporters in the wake of post-election euphoria suggested they were still welcome to remain included in the campaign. In place of the Obama for President website comes a new one for the transition www.change.gov featuring a blog and space for contributing ideas.
But it's undoubtedly easier to use the internet for advocacy rather than policy. The trick will be managing to keep people involved, and feeling they are still a part of this new administration, rather than shrieking pointlessly from its cyberfringes.
As for the Republicans, they're determined to learn some lessons from the ruins of their defeat. A weekend retreat to discuss how to change for the future. And a new website too, which calls on the party's leaders to start building a grassroots network and organise them online.
President elect Obama has a powerful window of opportunity to bring the nation with him on the difficult journey ahead. The internet could just provide him with the widest and loudest bully pulpit any President has ever enjoyed.
And if it's one which enables him to keep listening, and keep including, how much stronger, how much richer, his leadership could be.
