Social media in Government class?
Is it time to begin teaching how to use social media tools in our HS Government courses?
Two days after election day, president-Elect Obama has announced Change.gov, a website focused on the transition he is overseeing. While promises like the following (found on the Obama campaign website’s Ethics page) are easy to make during a election year, less than 48 hours after the election he is beginning to show signs of making good on some of these with the announcement today:
Sunlight Before Signing: Too often bills are rushed through Congress and to the president before the public has the opportunity to review them. As president, Obama will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days.
Hold 21st Century Fireside Chats: Obama will bring democracy and policy directly to the people by requiring his Cabinet officials to have periodic national broadband townhall meetings to discuss issues before their agencies.
Make White House Communications Public: Obama will amend executive orders to ensure that communications about regulatory policymaking between persons outside government and all White House staff are disclosed to the public.
Conduct Regulatory Agency Business in Public: Obama will require his appointees who lead the executive branch departments and rulemaking agencies to conduct the significant business of the agency in public, so that any citizen can see in person or watch on the Internet these debates.
I’m not alone in looking at the previous work done by the company that ran Obama’s campaign website and is now building the Change.gov site and wondering what might be to come:
- Will the “Sunshine Period” commenting on a revamped WhiteHouse.gov site include Facebook and/or MySpace widgets?
- Will official White House Communications be released simultaneously on YouTube and in the White House’s “Online Press Room” (ala BrightCove)?
- Will I be able to create a “profile” that follows me from one governmental agency website to another?
- Will a technology like DIGG’s comment engine be used to let the cream rise to the top in a transparent and open public commenting system? (One of the biggest problems with public commenting is useless and hateful attacks.)
- Would comments be allowed from Foreign entities?
- Will the IRS have their own online tax filing tools that rival those from Quicken and HR BLock?
- Will the White House have a twitter feed like the Obama campaign did during the campaign?
- Will the government set up official SMS networks like the ones already in use in Isreal and other countries?
The mind reels at the possibilities!
These may sound idealistic, but I think we may be surprised how much the Obama White House works to extend the White House (and by default all other branches of Federal government) into the daily lives of America’s youth. Taking the discussions and extending the playing field into their sphere of influence in a transparent and authentic way has the potential to involve a new generation in ways that preceding generations never had the opportunity to be involved.
I’m not doe eyed here. Politics is a business, and getting your message out to “Generation We” in the place that they live is not only a proper Socratic mission for a Democracy, it also doesn’t hurt when the next election cycle comes along. It will be interesting to see if an Obama White House can build the ultimate social media machine and NOT use it to their own advantage come election time again.
All the same, if our goal as Educators is to produce well rounded citizens, and the government begins to adopt many of these social media technologies previously believed to be “for the kids” and left out of classrooms… won’t it be our RESPONSIBILITY to teach the future citizens how to use them?
