Obama’s Twitter Town Hall: Will You Be Heard?
President Barack Obama is holding a first ever Twitter Town Hall at the White House on July 6 at 2 PM EDT. Obama will discuss more on the progress of struggling American economy and jobs. He will answer questions put to him by Twitter users and the event will be streamed live from the White House at askobama.twitter.com. The event is co-hosted by Twitter and Angel, a leading provider of enterprise-focused, cloud-based Customer Experience solutions.
Twitter Executive Chairman Jack Dorsey will moderate today’s meeting. “Today’s Presidential Town Hall event marks a major milestone in the intersection of social media, technology, and politics,” said Dave Rennyson, President of Angel. “This hotline broadens the Twitter audience, increases accessibility, and allows for personal expression in a very American way. We’re opening up the discussion to Twitter users and non-Twitter users alike by allowing anyone with a phone to ask the President a question in their own voice.”
“We’ve entered a different information age where people get news and information in a different way than they did in the past,” explained White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer. The questioners would be of 140 characters, Twitter’s maximum message length, but President will go traditional way and answers to the live audience. “He’s the leader of the free world. He decides how short his answers will be,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said.
Today’s Twitter event is the latest example of Obama’s use of new, socially oriented technology, as his administration is trying different practices to woo American voters for the upcoming 2012 election. Obama has used Facebook and YouTube social media hubs for various purposes in the past. He was quite active on YouTube, from his run for office to answering questions submitted on YouTube, similar to today’s Town Hall meeting. Earlier this year the President went west to Facebook headquarters, holding He held similar meeting in California, moderated by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. In the Facebook town hall, Obama answered questions ranging from debt, rising health care costs, buying a home, to his dream act.
But the looming question that’s drawing press and media attention is, can today’s Twitter event will help Obama reach American voters? Over the last two years, Americans are more worried about the sluggish economy, increased job loss, and their economic future. No doubt, today’s Twitter town hall would be a win-win situation; a major opportunity for the White House to communicate and convince the American people. But it’s not clear whether or not anything Obama will tweet on Wednesday can change his ultimate fate.
Since you’re here …
… We’d like to tell you about our mission and how you can help us fulfill it. SiliconANGLE Media Inc.’s business model is based on the intrinsic value of the content, not advertising. Unlike many online publications, we don’t have a paywall or run banner advertising, because we want to keep our journalism open, without influence or the need to chase traffic.The journalism, reporting and commentary on SiliconANGLE — along with live, unscripted video from our Silicon Valley studio and globe-trotting video teams at theCUBE — take a lot of hard work, time and money. Keeping the quality high requires the support of sponsors who are aligned with our vision of ad-free journalism content.
If you like the reporting, video interviews and other ad-free content here, please take a moment to check out a sample of the video content supported by our sponsors, tweet your support, and keep coming back to SiliconANGLE.
