It seems that the last people to adopt and adapt to new technology are politicians, the people we rely on to run our countries and keep everything ticking over while we live our lives. But this age-old trend seems to be slowly changing, as the new YouTube channels for U.S. politicians attest to.
The Politics Of Getting Elected
Politicians are a funny lot, gaining power by promising to deliver what people want and then, in the main, completely failing to do so when they’ve been elected. And a lot of them soon forget who it was that put them there in the first place: we, the people.
They will, of course, do their duty of listening and interacting with the public when needed, but most won’t go out of their way to speak directly to you, the person who pays their wages and who they work for.
Using Technology
Lucky then that technology is providing more ways than ever for us to interact with our public servants. The recent U.S. Presidential election showed the many and varied ways in which Barack Obama reached out, and it worked fantastically well, connecting him to the people able to vote him into office.
But a President looking to be elected is one thing. What about the Senators and Congressmen who are already there supposedly doing your bidding but often forget to take heed of your wishes.
Politicians On YouTube
Some politicians are already on YouTube, with their Capitol Hill offices uploading videos of them talking about subjects and agendas close to their, and hopefully your, hearts. But until now, it’s been a random mess with no real organization behind it.
Now though, YouTube has unveiled two new channels on its site – one for the House of Representatives, and one for the Senate. Every elected official in the United States will now be able to upload videos and know they’ll be attainable to the greater public in a central hub.
Conclusions
But while Choose ’08, YouTube’s channel dedicated to videos relating to the election proved massively popular, how well this effort will be received remains to be seen. Voters are usually as bad as the elected officials themselves about becoming much more interested in politics when there is am election close by.
Regardless, this is a great move on the part of the U.S. Government because it will potentially allow for dialog to flow between the politicians and the people they are there to protect and serve.
Along with social networks such as Facebook and MySpace, and micro-blogging service Twitter, online video is a realm politicians can move into in order to keep in touch with the great unwashed.
[Via The New York Times]
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