In watching some political news this week it occured to me that even with the recent wave of politicians using social media to campaign very few politicians are using social media in a very constructive way. I know that Obama used Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace to engage followers and drum up support tin '08 and that is a good start but why are politicians not using these platforms to more directly do what they are elected to do, find out what the people want and be their voice! And why are we as citizens not speaking more directly to our nation's leaders. We have a new, wonderful tool to communicate with and engage others and it's most obvious use is being overlooked!
After Googling Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Mitch McConnell, the only one with a social media link in the top 5 results was Barack Obama's Twitter account. After looking at the websites for both the Republican Party of KY and Democratic Party of KY there are Facebook and Twitter links on the front page of both but it seems as though they are really doing very little to really engage in convrsation with the public and mostly campaigning and pointing out what the other party is doing wrong. Usual politics I suppose.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Frankfort-KY/Kentucky-Democratic-Party/137078141865
http://www.facebook.com/KYGOP
http://twitter.com/KyDems
http://twitter.com/kygop
It does feel like all of their facebook pages are talking AT you instead of asking for your opinions,or encouraging you to speak out and support or protest an issue. Unfortunately that seems to be how political campaigns are primarily run, through attack ads. That probably falls back on us as a people in general. That's how they get the most response from us. And as they say "if it ain't broke don't fix it."
ReplyDeleteIt would be nice if that wouldn't be the concentration of our legislative system.
It's like they're saying 'Yeah, we're here but not really.' I would be curious to see if candidates or their parties would be willing to address concerns on things like Twitter, Facebook. Another aspect to consider is that the candidates who DO, may not be physically doing it themselves. That's what they pay interns to do! Great food for thought.
ReplyDeleteThis came a huge surprise to me, i figured that most politicians would have a social network profile. This is something, though i rarely check politicians out on Facebook or another social network, besides viewing Barrack Obamas Facebook during the election.
ReplyDelete