Social Networking with Obama

Among the technological innovations that have made campaigning and presidential speeches more easily accessible by the public lies an unlikely social networking outlet, Facebook. In April 2011 President Obama held a “town hall” at Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, California. The President answered questions, selected in advance by Facebook administrators through the audience’s and online Facebook users input, concerning the federal deficit and economic policies.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was in attendance and posed questions that had been submitted online by Facebook users that were coincided with Obama’s most popular debated topics, health care and education (Mark Millan). White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki states, "The president is looking forward to visiting Facebook and speaking directly to the American people about his plan for responsibly bringing down the deficit and continuing on the path to economic recovery, this is a part of our effort to hear from the American people."

President Obama focused on two major fiscal issues during the town hall Facebook broadcast: “passing a budget for fiscal year 2012, which begins October 1, and raising the federal debt ceiling so the government can continue meeting its obligations. (Mark Millan). The Presidents initiative calls for an end to tax cuts for the rich, further Medicare and Medicaid reforms, and a reduction in military spending.

During the town hall Facebook meeting, Obama and his administration decided against utilizing an application, which allows online viewers to vote on questions that they would like to be asked. This application, created by Google, often led to a selection of questions that strayed from the key points and focused on “tangential topics such as marijuana legislation” (Mark Millan). The decision to avoid the use of this application may also be related to the competitive relationship between Facebook and Google. 

President Obama has recently become a member of the social-networking location based application called Foursquare. Obama’s most recent check-in depicts his three-day Midwestern bus tour. The White House’s first Foursquare post reported Obama in Cannon Falls, Minnesota. The post read, “President Obama discussed ways to grow the economy and strengthen the middle class with a crowd of 500 people at Hannah's Bend Park on the first stop of his economic bus tour across the Midwest” (CNN Wire Staff). The CNN Wire Staff reports, “One appeal of Foursquare is to check into a site so often that you can oust someone else to become the ‘mayor’ there. For Obama, that raises a question though: How appealing is ‘mayor’ when you're already president?”

Sources: Mark Millan. http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/04/20/obama.facebook/index.html?iref=allsearch

CNN Wire Staff. http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/social.media/08/16/obama.foursquare/index.html?iref=allsearch