As the primary spokesperson for government policy he is automatically granted credibility by those who fail to understand the nuances of social media. When Trump says for example, he is going to put military on the border with Mexico he is espousing apparent USA Government policy for the whole world to take note of. Whether Trump likes it or not the private and personal Trump no longer exists. He is the POTUS 24/7. Every thing he utters is with this title and responsibilities included. Using social media to have a chat is inappropriate knowing how diverse his audience is and how seriously he can be taken. Being POTUS automatically grants him credibility as a news source for most, I would speculate. Also those that are expert at profiling, psycho analytics etc. gain much insight into national security issues by knowing how to read between the lines. His impulsive posts on twitter are a serious security risk that I am surprised the USA has allowed to continue.
exactly! The need to restrain impulsive personal commentary is a must if a Government is to proceed in an orderly fashion.
Right. But social media is not meant to be the analog of news. Social media - as far as this thread is concerned - is the movers and shakers expressing themselves directly - without the intermediate filtering layer of news sources. So that is essentially a new feature we have, that 20th century media did not have (except in the form of live broadcasts - State of the Nation sort of things. We have access directly to major players in a way that's unprecedented. That can only be a good thing in principle.
What you're suggesting as an antidote is to hide Trump et al behind a screen of filters. People of less transparent nations would be apoplectic to hear that we are complaining about too much direct access to our leaders, and that we ... ask for them to be shielded behind a layer of - frankly - propagandists? I mean, OK, it sucks that Trump is a liar. But having direct access (even if one-way) to the leaders of the country? That is a highly enviable "problem" to have - in this age, or in any age.
Sure... in an ideal world it would be great for our politicians to be candid and dare I say "Human". But you are talking about the end phase of an evolution that is under way, an end that may not occur for about 10 years or so, after citizens of the world get used to the candid and informal (chat & gossip) nature of twitter postings by our so called leaders.
If one has the money for it and the ability to use the machine/tech, it is solved. If one lacks either, it's not, and as I showed in post 23, about 25% of the US population lacks one or the other and would thus be excluded from receiving messages delivered only via FB/Twitter or other social media channel.
By deferring to social media instead of conventional methods a government thought wall as you call it is actually being installed by default. Many people treat social media as pure gossip, many people especially older people don't even have an email address.
How long before a given medium qualifies as "conventional"? Where/when do you draw the line? Should modern world leaders only be allowed to use charcoal and cave walls? No. There is a big difference between the government not allowing you to access them directly, and you choosing for yourself not to access them directly. That's not a wall; that's a choice. Which would be a demonstrably foolish thing to do, since - as the existence of this thread makes plain - it is a place where leader(s) of the world express themselves openly and directly. You can't complain you're not getting news, while at the same time willfully shutting it out. In the context of this thread, that is irrelevant.
I really do not see how the " short speak" of social media can be used to convey government policy. You seem to think that 240 words or so are enough to do the job. Hard copy written documents are the only mediums I respond to when dealing with legal issues. Perhaps you are happy about running the risk of scams, hacking etc but I am not.
I agree. But it's not my call; it's their call. I do not think that at all. That's a different issue.
That will work for some poor and impaired (age-related or technologically) individuals and not for some others, most notably those in rural areas, which basically means conservatives. 2017 -- Rural Libraries in the United States 2013 -- The State of Small and Rural Libraries in the United States Neither Quantum (I think) nor I are asserting or advocating that political leaders be disallowed communicating messages via social media. The norm, mine certainly (I haven't reviewed all of Quantum's remarks on the matter), for which we're advocating is that for whatever messages leaders communicate via social media, they must also communicate them via "traditional" modes. This isn't a matter of limiting the channels of communication; it's a matter of public officials not limiting their such that material quantities/shares of the electorate are existentially excluded from receiving them, and receiving them in a timely manner. There are many channels of information dissemination -- TV, radio, mail, tangible bills, social media, Internet pages/blogs, and in-person (town halls, physical forums, and other such open-access gatherings), for example -- and all of them abet citizens' awareness of what their elected and appointed representatives/administrators are doing, considering to do, and so on. I think ideally, representatives would communicate their chamber's goings on and their personal intentions/stances in a town hall/public forum setting because that mode is highly conducive to two-way communication whereby it's near certain that all parties involved will hear and be heard. Sadly, and most notably at the national level, in-person modes are less and less often used, particularly by national-level Republican elected office holders. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Perhaps the in-person mode is used more often by state, local and municipal office holders? In general, I don't know; however, in DC there is a plethora of such opportunities whereby anyone who wants to keep apprised of what the City Council is doing can do so, by attending town halls, open hearings, meetings and roundtables. Moreover, DC's representative in the US Congress frequently appears at public events where residents can speak with her. Additionally, DC has Advisory Neighborhood Commissions at which representatives appear. And, of course, they use social media, and other Internet modes, even podcasts. It's great, and as it should be among all elected office holders in the US, that representatives use all the means available to them and don't presume that everyone has access to the Internet and knows how to use the tools one must to obtain information via the Internet. The point being that DC's elected representatives, in addition to using Internet-enabled communication means also and routinely use means of communication that exclude as few people as possible; our leaders use as many communication channels as possible to make sure that exclusion from political and policymaking processes remains, as much as possible, not a function of the communication mode officials choose to use, but a function of citizens' will to be informed and participative. DC's representatives may not do "everything" right, but when it comes to communicating what they're doing, considering, not considering, etc., they do a good job. Aside: It seems to me that the electorate and the elected have embraced the notion that to obtain elected office, particularly federal level elected office, is to ascend to some sort of celebrity status and we, the people who elected them, are bound to put up with whatever means, modes and instances of communication they are willing to forbear giving us....as though they are royalty of some stripe who are obliged only to inform us of what they think we need to know. I don't know about you, but from where I sit, nothing could be farther from the truth.
You can't have it both ways. Now you're saying that free services at public buildings isn't enough. And they do, as they always have. Anything previous POTUS's said was reported on the TV and radio. Anything this POTUS says is reported on the TV and radio AND is available directly via social media. This new medium isn't removing anything - it's adding.
Not so. What is reported on TV and radio is largely an account of what this POTUS has deigned to say on social media - Twitter, in particular - and in carefully orchestrated public speeches. That is not the same as serious interviews and publicly released informational handouts, such as were common in newspapers and similarly mediated news outlets. So the public in general - especially the Republican voting base - is maintained in a state of nearly complete ignorance, a more deprived state of the same kind as has been increasingly significant for the past forty years. And this is maintained by social media, the most easily manipulated form of communication available. It has depleted the already inadequate sources of journalistically mediated news available to most Americans.
Does the hypothetical solution then, discourage social media as a platform, thereby forcing them to communicate via less manipulable media? Ah, true. That is a concrete consequence of the rise of social media - the loss of the institutions that provide checks and balances.
Discouraging anything would be a separate matter. Forcing primary communication via news media (mediated by journalists, by definition) would be a good idea, imho - a standard mode of communication such as any employee would required to employ, by way of accountability to the boss.
If a public official is of a mind to share a piece of information via social media, fine, so long as they ensure that piece of information gets shared also via communication modes that non-Internet users can and do receive, and they need to do so in a timely enough manner that any would-be interested parties can respond with their thoughts before an irreversible (in the short-term) action is by the pol taken with regard to that piece of information. Red: Surely your personal experience is not such that you cannot foresee the practical implausibility of tacitly obliging ~25% of the population be required, by dint of age, infirmity or financial status to daily (or nearly so) visit a library during library operating hours so they can keep timely apprised of what their elected and appointed public office holders' have in mind, have said, intend to do/not do, etc. While the availability at libraries of free Internet services certainly helps attenuate the extent of the problem about a quarter of the citizenry may face were social media the de facto mode of politicians' communication with their electorates, it does not sufficiently penetratively do so. When A entrusts B with the privilege and honor of doing XYZ on A's behalf, it's A's obligation to provide reporting to B that doesn't "put B out" to receive that reporting. When A entrusts B with the privilege and honor of doing XYZ on A's behalf, it's A's obligation to keep B apprised of the status of A's activities, not B's to go find out what A is up to and what the status of it is. Political leaders long have tacitly recognized their duty to communicate requires they ensure taxpayers/citizens have sufficient means to receive the communication. At the most basic level and in pre-electronic media, that meant, among other things, ensuring that folks can read insofar as written media and word of mouth were the only modes of communication. Political office holders long have been equally aware that confounding people's ability to obtain information about public policy ideas and initiatives very effectively abets the politicians' interests, most notably those attendant to retaining political sway and formal power. To wit, in the 1860s, literacy among whites in the North, where free public education had become de rigueur, was above 95%, whereas among Southern whites where free education wasn't the norm, it was but ~56%. Among Blacks, it was even worse, at ~20% nationally and 5% in the South. Blue: Legislators' and executive branch (federal, state, local and municipal) administration officials' declarations are, at best, these days, as always has been so, only sometimes reported by news organizations. To wit, myriad non-POTUS politicians and/or executive branch organizations daily issue policy statements and press releases and have press briefings, and few of them make it into any newspaper, TV or radio news reporting. To wit, what share of the following announcements have made it into the mainstream press? Pentagon (rinse and repeat for the remaining US government branches, bureaus, agencies, and departments) White House Your federal, state and local representatives' policy positions, thoughts, sponsored legislation/policies and other initiatives --> Go to their websites, FB and Twitter pages/fees and see what share of the content there has made it into television, radio, newspapers, mailed flyers and/or has been repeated at their town halls where voters can learn of them. What you'll find if you bother to perform that analysis is that the overwhelming majority of it is not ever delivered via any of those means. That it isn't results in people having no Internet access not being and not being able to be privy to that information. I have no idea why you cited the POTUS as the exemplar of your point. The country has literally thousands of elected and appointed officials besides the POTUS. The POTUS has the biggest "megaphone" of all pols, and one need only check out the WH link above and/or his (or Obama's) Twitter feed to see that not everything he says, does, thinks, about governance and public policy is reported by the news.
It can't. But keep in mind that this is not a president capable of producing "hard copy written documents." 240 characters is literally the best he can do by himself.
