In chapter 7 (The Internet Influence Online Political News and Political Discourse) we read how the internet has changed the way the public views politics and the candidates. It is noted in that chapter that with the Howard Dean campaign, the internet and social media helped to make political campaigns a means to better inform the public and a force to be reckoned with. This article on CNN News explains how President Obama has made a huge changed in this area. The story starts off explaining that President Obama has named Shailagh Murray as his new Senior Adviser, prior to this post she was the Communication Director to Vice President Biden. In her new role she will be advising the president in many areas helping to cut through all the Washington noise and focus on matters that concern everyday Americans. She will do this in several ways, one is with help from public opinion polls like we spoke of in chapter 8. Public Polls help a candidate or in this case the president obtain some much needed information, especially with the upcoming elections in 2016. Outgoing presidents wants to make sure that his or her party will stay in office if at all possible.
Secondly he announced that he has created the position of Chief Digital Officer and has appointed Jason Goldman to this position. Goldman stated that he wanted to amplify White House Communication to the American people and how he was going to do this was through his office which is the Office of Digital Strategy. We learned in chapter 7 about the effectiveness of blogging, but how this form of media can sometimes have challenges of accuracy. So one of Goldman’s jobs will be to make sure that the blogs and social networks that the white house uses will have the most accurate and up to date information. He also stated part of his goal in this position will be to expand ways so that the American people can help in the expansion of conversations and give feedback to the White House.
He goes on to comment on how much the White House and the President has used media and social networks just in the past year, to get information out to the public and most importantly to the younger American public.
I like the content of your post and how you go into the communications of the Executive Branch. I think it is funny how the President has the need for a Senior Adviser so he sort of stole the Vice-President’s. You also wrote how the White House created a position called “Chief Digital Officer.” This is evidence of how the times are changing. Keeping up on social media is starting to become more important than ever. In some ways, the Internet can be more hurtful to politicians than traditional media such as newspapers or TV networks. Getting information out to the public by tweeting or by posting on Facebook will start to become very important in upcoming elections.