Barack Obama is taking the next step in the Franklin Delano Roosevelt tradition of finding new ways to connect and communicate with Americans. Roosevelt was the first President to make regular radio speeches that all Americans could listen to. These “fireside chats” revolutionized the President’s relationship with Americans through his personal, inspiring talks that made people feel like he was speaking just to their needs, rather than the whole nation.
Over the years, Roosevelt’s radio-talks have evolved with the personalities of different Presidents. Ronald Reagan initiated weekly Saturday radio addresses, in which the President gives updates and announcements. The party out of power (in this case, the Democrats for the last eight years) then gives a talk in response to the President’s address. But these Presidential discussions have become so commonplace in our country that hardly anyone listens to them anymore, or even knows what frequency they’re on. Barack Obama, however, is about to solve that problem.
Obama will be the first President to use videos and the Internet to release his weekly addresses. The President-Elect launched his first Democratic response speech on November 15th on YouTube, a video that has already received more than 600,000 hits. Obama’s goal is to revive the Presidential radio talk’s popularity by attracting millions of YouTube and Internet users who can access the videos easily at any time. Just as Roosevelt revolutionized the way the President communicated with Americans during the Great Depression with his “fireside chats,” Obama is doing the same with his YouTube addresses.
But this makes me wonder: does this change in communication for the President mean progress? Obviously, this is a breakthrough in terms of technology. Today, the Internet and television are the fastest ways to get the news, while in the thirties there was only radio. But have we made progress in terms of our President connecting with Americans? I don’t think so. Obama has simply gotten our country’s attention back up to the level that Roosevelt enjoyed during the Great Depression. But why has there been a sixty-year gap? Are we as a country guilty of tuning out the President’s messages after the “newness” has gone? Is that why other Presidents have failed? Or is technology moving so fast, our Presidents haven’t been savvy about keeping up? The truth is, progress and innovation aren’t enough. If you’re not a great communicator, nobody’s going to listen, no matter how advanced the technology you use. What our country needs today is a tech-savvy leader with the charisma and communications skills to connect. Let’s hope Obama breaks through again, in the tradition of FDR.
1 comment:
I was actually thinking about this the other day, of how more tech-savvy Obama is than McCain or Bush, and that he will use it to his advantage while in office. I think it's important that he use YouTube as a resource to communicate with the nation, and I think this will help both his approval, and how educated Americans are about current events. I think that YouTube is prevalent enough help Obama communicate with the country in this manner.
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