Last Wednesday after his rally in Charlottesville, President Barack Obama hosted a half-hour “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) session on Reddit.com, a link-sharing website with millions of users worldwide. Over the course of 30 minutes, the president answered users’ questions about the space program, Internet neutrality and the White House beer recipe. The post’s overwhelming traffic caused the entire website to overload, making it inaccessible for hours to follow.
Several news outlets discussed the possible implications of Obama’s AMA. Though the talk focused mostly on the effect it will have on his campaign, networks paid almost equal attention to what Obama’s Reddit session meant for political media as a whole. Suddenly, Reddit’s name emerged from the shadows of college-speak and Facebook chats and entered the garish world of news media. Everybody had questions: Why did he do this? Would Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney participate? And my favorite: How can I host my own AMA?
For a world which has embarked on Mars exploration and cloned several species of animals, the Internet, for some reason, remains a novelty. Social media is nothing new to the political arena. In fact, most statesmen in the United States and abroad have subscribed to some form of Internet communication with their constituents, with Facebook and Twitter being on the forefront.
So in theory, Obama’s AMA is not all that extraordinary, as it had nearly all the elements of a regular Twitter post: He communicated with an online audience, received instant feedback and had the luxury of choosing his words carefully before sharing them. There is, however, one small difference: Obama threw himself into a pool of questions, both private and personal, generated by a completely anonymous audience.
When it comes to most celebrities, this intimacy of direct question-and-answer sessions on the Internet has a humanizing effect. The president’s was no different. Reddit’s AMA brought Obama closer to a population beyond his constituency. Yet the debate remains over the degree to which the president should be humanized. The fact is that most mainstream celebrities have never done a Reddit AMA. So did Obama’s move lower his pedestal, or just make it more visible?
The answer is neither. Although Barack Obama is the most Internet-savvy president the United States has ever had, having hosted a town hall forum and live Facebook video chat, his Reddit appearance was just a way of using yet another one of the Internet’s resources for his campaign. The idea of the AMA, while unprecedented, does not replace his formal rallies and public appearances, nor does it bring the audience dangerously close to his personal sphere.
To clarify, there is such a thing as a president who is “dangerously close.” As the leader of the free world, Obama’s position hinges on his image as well as a perception. Image on its own is contingent on his appeal to an audience. Perception, on the other hand, is the height of his image, relative to everyone else’s. The president has several staff members whose job it is to keep the two at a constant balance: likeable, but lofty.
Yet, as we have seen with London’s “Twitter Olympics,” the development of global communication always adds an extra component to the perception of public figures. This is not just with the Internet. Every generation has seen a remarkable change in its political campaigns. The McKinley election of 1896 was early to use mass media to target specific demographics, while the Kennedy-Nixon election proved the effect that television had on both image and perception.
In the case of Reddit’s AMA, both coordinates were just right. Obama’s choice of which questions to answer earned him a high point on the perception scale, while his eagerness to host an AMA at all added to his image. The president himself signed off on a pretty serious note, stating that Reddit was an “example of how technology and the internet can empower the sorts of conversations that strengthen our democracy over the long run.” He wrote that, of course, before closing off with a “Not Bad.”
Denise Taylor’s column normally appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at d.taylor@cavalierdaily.com.
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