Twitter connects Obama to youth
Saturday, October 16, 2010
On October 14th, President Obama took action to reach out to the young people by holding a live, interactive, commercial-free discussion on MTV, BET, CMT, and others. The discussion was open to 225 young people in the audience and anyone with a Twitter account.
By using the hastags #mygreatesthope and #mygreatestfear, all users able to voice their hopes and fears to the president.
By using the hastags #mygreatesthope and #mygreatestfear, all users able to voice their hopes and fears to the president.
Many concerns were addressed at the chat. Some of which included: violence in schools, legal immigration, crime among young people, increasing the rates of black men and women in college, and fears of America turning into a communist country.
Obama answered each concern individually, enforcing the idea of unity by saying, "We're all Americans. We all want the best for this country. We may have some disagreements in terms of how to get there, but all of us want to make sure our economy is strong, the jobs are growing..."
Politically speaking, this type of discussion can enforce a sense of unity among the youth for the future. Obama is known for reaching out to the young people. He is putting forth effort to get the youth involved with issues of their nation by using Twitter and MTV (popular mediums) as means to connect.
Other media platforms that were used included MTV.com, BET.com, and CMT.com where the chats were streamed live. Not only was media used to help viewers interact with Obama, but the discussion could be viewed by way of television or Internet, which increased viewer ratings.
These forms of media should be attributed to the unity of the nation because only a select number of individuals would have been able to contribute to the conversation without them. By using Twitter to help viewers interact, the opinions of all young people were heard and addressed.
There is much thanks to be given to technology and media for opportunities like this to be made possible.
