Obama Will Use Internet to Communicate Directly to Citizens and Bypass Mainstream Media

Obama Will Use to Internet Reach Out Directly to Citizens and Bypass the Mainstream Media

It's the first visible result of a major transition-team effort to make Obama's conversations with the electorate more direct. In addition, members and supporters of the White House media upgrade want more input opportunities for the public.

Many of the changes, if adopted, also would curb the power of a traditional but often unpopular middleman between presidents and the populace: the mainstream media.

He wants to put videos of government meetings online, have officials hold online 'town hall meetings' and create an accessible internet database of government spending so that the public can track their tax dollars themselves.

All of this will be backed up by a big construction boom in America's broadband network.

Another proposal before the transition team is to give Obama's Internet audience a chance to question him directly, either as part of a traditional news conference or separately.

Andrew Rasiej, the founder of the Personal Democracy Forum, and others envision an online voting system that enables Internet respondents to decide together what the most important questions are to ask the president.A prototype of sorts went live this week at www.Obamacto.org. It's enabled thousands of respondents to vote on what the top priorities should be for a new position that Obama has created, chief technology officer.

"If 10,000 people say they want Obama to answer a question, he's probably going to respond,"they'd usurp the power of traditional journalists to ask questions. said Rasiej..."Whether Obama responds at a news conference or in a separate message to his Internet questioners...they'd make news. And they'd usurp the power of traditional journalists to ask questions."

But by far the most revolutionary - and potentially the most politically risky - part of Obama's hi-tech revolution is the internet army that stands behind him. Obama plans to bring his online backers, who shatter fundraising records, with him to Washington.

They are more than 3.1 million-strong in terms of financial contributors and volunteers. In terms of an email database of supporters, they number about 10 million and form perhaps the world's biggest focus group. It is a massive lobby of activists across the nation, which Obama can directly access via email or social networking websites such as Facebook, Myspace or Twitter.

He can deploy them in support of his plans, lobbying reluctant politicians or businesses. Nothing of its kind has ever existed before. They could help him to create one of the most powerful presidencies in history.

for complete articles:

Obama Will Use YouTube to Reach Out Directly to Voters
November 14, 2008

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/politics/story/55941.html


Obama's Wi-Fi White House Speaks to the YouTube Age
November 16 2008

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/16/obama-white-house-barackobama


Obama Online Resources

The Office of the President-Elect
weekly address videos, news, blog, agenda, email updates

change.gov


My.BarackObama
An online community with over a million members.
Get access to tools to organize for Barack Obama and build this movement for change.

my.barackobama.com


Obama's YouTube website

www.youtube.com/barackobama



Obama CTO
Barack Obama promised to use technology to make it easier for citizens to participate in government. Obama CTO's goal is to provide the country's first Chief Technology Officer (CTO) with one example of how this might work.

www.Obamacto.org