The Social Media President

Transcription

1 The Social Media President

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3 The Social Media President Barack Obama and the Politics of Digital Engagement JAMES E. KATZ, MICHAEL BARRIS, AND ANSHUL JAIN

4 ISBN DOI / ISBN (ebook) THE SOCIAL MEDIA PRESIDENT Copyright James E. Katz, Michael Barris, and Anshul Jain, Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition All rights reserved. First published in 2013 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN in the United States a division of St. Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number , of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: (hc) ISBN: (pbk) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress. A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: December

5 Contents A ck n o w l e d g m e n t s ix Part I Framing the Issue 1. I nt r o d u c t i o n a n d O v e r v i e w 3 Let Them Determine Its Course 3 The Promise and Its Appeal 3 M o d e l s o f A m e r i c a n G o v e r n m e n t 4 Lines of Inquiry 6 O u t l i n e o f t h e B o o k 9 2. Situating Social Media and Citizen Participation in the Obama Era 11 Definitions: Digital Engagement, Social Media, and the Social Media P r e s i d e n t 11 From One-way to Multi-way Communication: A Gateway to Becoming a Social Media President 14 Structures of Usage of the Public s Voice in White House Social Media E x e r c i s e s 15 Three Modalities of Social Media Interaction between Government and C i t i z e n s 16 Topical Focus and Case Study Selection Digital Media and Electoral Politics: An Abbreviated History 21 Elections and Governance as Digital Media Emerges 22 Digital Media and the Presidency: The Challenge of Governance 37 Part II The Obama Presidency 4. Framing the People s White House : Crowdsourcing and the Citizen s Briefing Book 41 Expectations of Changing the Way Washington Works 41 Crowdsourcing in the Obama Administration Agenda: The Citizen s B r i e f i n g B o o k 4 4 R e s u l t s o f t h e E x e r c i s e 4 6 I m p a c t o f R e p o r t 49 C o n c l u s i o n 5 0

6 vi CONTENTS 5. W h it e H o u s e O n l i n e To w n H a l l 51 Seeking to Engage the American Public via Social Media 51 Critics Evaluate the Online Town Hall 53 Questions of Control and Predictability in Open Forums 54 The Pattern Continues 56 Ideologies of Engagement and Nonengagement 58 C o n c l u s i o n Grand Challenges: Crowdsourcing a Vision for Science and Technology 63 Fully Open Government Grand Challenge 63 N e w C r o w d s o u r c i n g To o l 65 Disconnection between Crowdsourcing and Policy Innovations 67 C o n c l u s i o n The Supreme Court Vacancies and the Healthcare Debate 73 Supreme Court Vacancies: Why Was Social Media Voting Not Used? 73 Social Media to Combat Opposition to Healthcare 78 Assessments of Healthcare Initiatives and Social Media 81 C o n c l u s i o n Social Media Modalities: Examples and Patterns from the Obama White House 85 Three Modalities of Social Media for Government Policy 85 The We the People Campaign 90 O t h e r E f f o r t s t o G a i n E n g a g e m e n t 9 5 Free Moral Labor: Engaged Citizens as Propagators of Presidential V i e w p o i n t s 10 3 C o n c l u s i o n Propagation of Social Media Modalities in the Federal Government 109 Resonance and Limits within the Administration 110 Implementation and Bureaucracy: Putting the Federal Data Sharing/ Transparency Directive into Action 113 Broader Operational Goals and Transparency 116 Progress in the Early Obama Administration 117 Interbranch Realities: A Changed Landscape 119 Democracy Watchdogs Review President Obama s Early Social M e d i a S t r a t e g y Assessment of Progress in the Early Years across the Three Modalities 121 R e c e n t P r o g r e s s Glass Suggestion Boxes, Domestic and International 125 C o n c l u s i o n Part III Perspectives and Outlook on the Social Media President 10. A n a l y t i c a l Pe r s p e c t i v e s 12 9 Sincere Motivations in a Constrained Landscape 129 O p e r a t i o n a l S h o r t c o m i n g s 135 S t r a t e g i c M a n i p u l a t i o n 14 0

7 CONTENTS vii The Nonfeasibility of Direct Mass Engagement 141 A n A b s e n c e o f D e s i g n 14 3 A d d i t i o n a l C o n s i d e r a t i o n s 14 3 Top-Down Leadership and Pronouncements about Social Media 146 Social Media and Citizen Imagination: Bringing the President Close 147 S u s t a i n i n g t h e E n g a g e m e n t 14 8 Conclusion: The Road Not Taken C o n c l u s i o n s a n d I m p l i c a t i o n s 153 Broader Patterns of Social Media Realities 153 Digital Divide and Fundamental Inequalities of Digital Engagement 157 Strengthening Bureaucracies in Surprising Ways 158 B l o w b a c k o f D i s a p p o i n t e d S u p p o r t e r s 16 0 Misplaced Faith in the Wisdom of the People, as Reflected in Plebiscites and Low-Interest Issues 160 Social Media Models of Behavior: Economic Actor Vis-à-vis Technocratic Citizen 161 Civic Culture and Empowerment 164 Covert Activities and Hidden Consequences 165 Is There a Future for Presidential Social Media? 165 C l o s i n g R e m a r k s 16 6 I m p l i c a t i o n s f o r F u t u r e D i r e c t i o n s 167 Pe r i l s o f S o c i a l M e d i a S t e e r i n g 16 8 Appendix: Scholarship of Digital Media and the American Political Landscape 171 The Democratizing Potential of Information and Communication Technologies 171 Practical Limitations to Deliberative Democracy 173 Political Communication Scholarship 173 Presidential Scholarship 175 Media and Public Opinion Scholarship 176 Civic Engagement Scholarship 178 Digital Media and Transparency 178 Tapping the Organizing Power of Social Media 179 Not e s 181 In d e x 203

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9 Acknowledgments As with any scholarly project, authors incur a deep debt from many quarters. Here my coauthors and I have a chance to express appreciation to some of the many people who have shared generously of their time and insights. When I was at Rutgers University, the late Irving Louis Horowitz pressed me to initiate the project and Dean Jorge Schement gave encouragement once it was launched. Rutgers students Lora Appel and Daniel Halpern provided fascinating empirical backdrops to citizen participation in federal social media offerings that have done much to inform our thinking on the subject. Gratitude also goes to the Rutgers students who participated in my seminars on media and culture, especially Rhaman Johnson, Michelle Riley, and Marianne Stewart Titus. David G. Robinson and Ed Felten of the Princeton University Center for Information Technology and Policy provided a stimulating milieu in which to work. In 2012, I moved to Boston University where the intellectual leadership of Dean Tom Fiedler of the College of Communication has played an instrumental role in facilitating the book s completion. During the work s development, John T. Carey contributed thoughtful ideas about public involvement in policy via media as did Edward Tenner and Ron Rice concerning ideologies and historical antecedents. Beth Noveck generously shared her time and insights. Nancy Baym, James Shanahan, Kristóf Nyíri, András Benedek, Richard John, André Caron, Craig Calhoun, Michael Schudson, Barry Wellman, Fred Turner, Anne- Marie Slaughter, Eszter Hargittai, Joachim Höflich, Leopoldina Fortunati, Rich Ling, Jack Harris, Jeffrey Boase, Zeynep Tufekci, Aaron Shaw, Paul DiMaggio, Letizia Caronia, Paul Starr, Joe Turow, Scott Campbell, Andy Chadwick, David Greenberg, John Pavlik, Matt Weber, Jack Bratich, Dino Christenson, Douglas Kriner, Gianpietro Mazzoleni, Fausto Colombo, Peppino Ortoleva, and Aram Sinnreich offered valuable perspectives. Amanda McGarry and Allison Keir played vital roles at the infrastructural level, as did Allison DeAngelis. Joyce Walsh offered discerning advice concerning cover design. I benefited from the advice of editors Vicky Cullen, Scarlet Neath, and Brian O Connor. Manuel Castells was incisive and discerning in his advice at an early stage; Matt Hindman, Phil Howard, Dave Karpf, and Daniel Kreiss were extraordinarily helpful at the project s closing stages. The highly talented Liz Crocker, who joined my team in 2013, rendered invaluable assistance in conducting interviews, tracking down important leads, and at many junctures incisively contributed to the manuscript.

10 x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My coauthors and I are profoundly grateful to the many interviewees without whom this book would be much the poorer. They are quoted by name unless they requested anonymity, in which case they are simply referred to, in a general way, by their position. Needless to say, all mistakes and all errors of interpretation and judgment rest with me alone. James E. Katz Kenmore Square Boston, Massachusetts