New media reaches, and measures easily

Michael Hedges July 12, 2009 (follow on Twitter)

New media’s reach keeps unfolding. People find it, use it and believe in it. There’s a soft power to it, mixing the passion with the personal. Most of all new media connects people with message in ways we’re just beginning to understand.

Barack Obama leapt ahead of political challengers during the long campaign, culminating in his election as President of the United States last November. Many factors played into his election. One, widely recognized, was the campaigns use of new media. Barely six months into that presidency, Team Obama continues to use those skills at home and abroad, obvious this weekend in the African republic of Ghana.

“It’s been said that Barack Obama is the world’s first web 2.0 president,” observed University of Ghana political science professor Amos Anyimadu to Joy FM the day before Obama’s arrival. Anyimadu spent the day (July 10) using Twitter from the Joy FM studios to share comments on the US president’s visit. 

“We have to be very circumspect in what we (in Ghana) can realistically get from the visit, ”he said. “One of the small things that I think we can get is agitating (Ghanaian president John Atta Mills’s) interest in new media and its application to Ghana.”

President Obama’s office has set up a Twitter page covering the visit. A Facebook events page shows video and invites comments. The US international broadcaster Voice of America (VOA) is making text and video available for download.

“There is a big difference in the way people consume information across the world,” said White House director of new media Macon Phillips to VOA News (July 10), “so what is really popular in Asia is very different than the United States and is very different than Africa, or Europe, or really there's so much variety out there. One of the most exciting things about Africa is how comfortable people are with their phones.”

“The primary way of accessing the internet will be handsets, “ said VOA Development Director Doug Boynton on returning from a series of June visits with African broadcasters.  Boynton said he’s keeping attention at VOA on audiences in Africa because, in part, of the feedback. “I love Africa,” he said, “and people in Africa respond to us.”

“Radio is still the number one communications medium across Africa, and Ghana has a particularly vibrant and active one with a lot of local and national community interaction,” wrote Erik Hersman in his blog White African. “As everyone knows, mobile phone penetration has grown at an explosive rate in Africa, this means that SMS is a fairly democratic means for getting feedback from people of every demographic across the nation.” Hersman has worked with the White House on new media strategies for Africa.

The new media outreach focused on the presidential visit extends to the whole of the African continent. Kenya’s biggest mobile phone operator Safaricom streamed VOA’s feed of Obama’s headlining speech (July 11) to its subscriber base of 17 million. African social networking platform MXit, based in South Africa, took questions and comments for Obama with a response, according to MXit, in the hundreds of thousands. “There's a very aggressive new media strategy to speak directly to the continent,” said White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs to the press gaggle (July 9).

Team Obama’s success in capturing the benefits of new media both during the presidential campaign and in its subsequent – and brief – tenure has grabbed the attention of media people and, perhaps, political leaders. New media connects with people; a good thing, say some, not so good say those still trying to comprehend the “intertubes.”

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) invited Obama campaign new media director Joe Rospars to illuminate for public broadcasters at the Eurovision TV Summit (May 5) the “crucial role” played by new media in a presidential campaign. Rospars talked about the “mission” of “channeling participation; everyone can become a field organizer.”

As the media “reset” button was pushed at the Cannes International Advertising Festival by Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer (see story here), the Obama For America campaign was awarded the Festivals’ top prize, the Titanium Lion, for its community organizer inspired, bottom-up, multi-media success. 

"They set the framework and let other people contribute to it," said jury president David Droga. "They turned (political marketing) from being one dimensional to something the whole country could contribute to. It was a fantastic idea. "

There are, of course, several messages in this for ‘old’ media.

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