2nd Draft: Bradford N. Smith

Bradford N. Smith
English 155
11/29/09

Obama Caught in the Web

Steven Johnson and Brian Willaims’ articles portray two very different opinions about Web 2.0. Rather than Web 1.0, which was organized around pages of information, Web 2.0 is focused on the people themselves. With Web 2.0 today, people can write blogs, film youtubes, and are able to look up just the things that interest them. Johnson’s position on Web 2.0 is that it is a great step forward for us, no longer restricting people to the information they are given alone. As Johnson says in his article, “There are no experts or the users themselves are the experts.” It is with these new available resources, people are now able to focus on what matters to them, and affects their lives. It is because of this that Williams opinion differs. His belief is that everyone is “talking at once”, as in, there is an overload of information in this new Web 2.0 that people just don’t need to know. With all the personal opinion pieces and news for specific areas alone, people are hearing less and less of what is outside of their own realm, making them more and more secluded from the rest of society. It is for this reason that Williams thinks we may miss out on things important to the world because we are too focused on ourselves. Although people are beginning to focus more on their own interests, because of Web 2.0, Barack Obama was able to establish a community of supporters who helped him win the Presidential election.
Much like Johnson said, with this new Web 2.0, people are being given the ability to tell the world what they know. In the past few years, as Johnson says, “placebloggers have emerged who write about their neighborhoods and the issues that are most important to the people living in them”. With people writing about local news that the major media most times ignores, they are providing an excellent service to people who are interested in knowing about what is going on near them, rather than what CNN.com is saying, for example, about things halfway across the world. Another thing Web 2.0 allows is for people to keep updated with friends and family. A decade ago, keeping in touch with old high school friends was a basically impossible task. For the most part, you didn’t hear anything from anyone until the next reunion came around, but today, with Web 2.0, you are able to keep updated every second of every day. Your friends post a new twitter, or a new youtube video, or even leave you a comment on facebook, which have become a quick and simple way for people to stay in contact. It may not seem as personal as a phone call, but it is keeping friendships and families together, which is a definite plus for Web 2.0. Another development with Web 2.0 is the emergence of “internet phenomenon”, which is a locally developed piece of the Web that spreads across the nation, or even the world, and reaches a vaster audience, because of Web 2.0. One important Internet phenomenon came about prior to the 2008 United States Presidential Election. As it looked more like Hilary Clinton would be the democratic nominee, Barack Obama set up a website called my.barackobama.com which built him a community of supporters through its Web 2.0 style and design.
My.barackobama.com was designed as a site where supporters could come together to discuss important political issues and plan events in order to raise money for Obama’s campaign. Developed during the beginning of the facebook trend, it allowed users to make friends with supporters they knew or wanted to know, as well as the opportunity to form groups consisting of people in their local community. In these groups users were able to discuss upcoming fundraisers, opportunities to give back to the community, and even things they felt the President needed to do for their town. It got many Americans who may have otherwise been not as politically active, to do what they felt was right, because the site put the issues upfront and from the perspective of somebody local. It also provided users with constantly updated information of events in the area, giving people more of an opportunity to participate than when they would have to just hear about the events on television or the radio. The site also contained direct links to other Web 2.0 items of Obama’s campaign, including his Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, and Flickr. With the increase in support and awareness, groups of people came together and created such other Obama Web 2.0 phenomenon as fightthesmears.com and Obama Girl, whose song “I’ve Got A Crush on Obama” garnered vast media attention, getting her (Amber Lee Ettinger) appearances on Saturday Night Live and in Maxim magazine. This was all great publicity for Barack Obama and enabled him to raise an enormous amount of funds for his campaign, and win him the democratic nomination. Without Web 2.0 existing to allow Obama supporters to form communities and connect in ways not able through the mail and other media, it is unlikely that Barack would have been able to get enough support to win the nomination, and subsequently the election.
Social networking sites are the reunions, phone conversations, and main means of communication for a lot of people today. Therefore, Web 2.0 is one of the best ways for people to spread their thoughts and ideas to the local public, and even further, to the national and world audience. Web 2.0 has allowed every John and Jane Doe to become the reporters and authors on everything from the war to the local bake sale. It is for this reason that people are becoming more and more worldly, giving them the chance to look at stories from every perspective out there. As limited as it may seem, people will be as they decide to examine further only what interests them, they are in fact expanding their knowledge by being given the opportunity to examine things from different views. With the greater amount of local viewpoints out there, more and more larger media corporations are picking up on their importance. People prefer to hear what is going on in their part of the world, or how big issues are affecting their community, so they are turning more to the aspects of Web 2.0 than the news websites of CNN, MSNBC, etc.
When times to vote come along, it is important for people to know how they feel about the specific issue on the table. As much as larger news media discusses these issues, they all have a certain bias, so people prefer to look to their own community to get other opinions and the facts on how these issues will exactly pertain to them. Barack Obama’s website my.barackobama.com provided people with just that opportunity. They could post on local, national, or even global forums discussing the most current issues affecting them, and they could read about what others had to say about them. It was this new ability that gave a lot of the site’s users a reason to go onto the site, and it also was a major factor in their deciding of their choice for President. The website itself offers many ways for people to get involved in politics and the issues that we are facing, including, “Spreading the word to friends and neighbors about the President's approach on the big issues facing our nation, like health care, energy and education.” As it says on the sites “About OFA” page. Since users were able to talk directly to other people who shared their views, many communities were born out of this site, and even the politicians themselves got the opportunity to talk directly to voters. This allowed the spread of local ideas into the national government, and got many important issues noticed that might have otherwise been ignored. Web 2.0 as applied by my.barackobama.com is definitely a great example of what a positive effect Web 2.0 has been on society. As my.barackobama.com states, “Nothing is more powerful than your voice in your community.”
Web 2.0 not only offers the ability for people to reach out across the globe, but it also benefits society through its ability to bring unknown information into the light. Many people have heard the term “YouTube sensation”, which is just a fancy way of saying a celebrity created via the Internet. A lot of bright and talented people have been able to use Web 2.0 to their advantage, and have become bigger than some actors today. Jessica Lee Rose made the jump from playing online damsel, lonelygirl15, to starring on the ABC Family show Greek. However, even some former celebrities have put Web 2.0 to use, and made a comeback. Just take a look at Rick Astley (the musician who shows up whenever one gets “rickrolled” online), who has made a major comeback in the last couple years after fading into obscurity following his 1993 album, Body and Soul. Although not everyone can expect this benefit from Web 2.0, it is a great aspect of it, that many people and corporations are taking advantage of.
For Barack Obama, after an unsuccessful bid for a seat in the House of Representatives and only three years as a member of the Senate, his announcement to run for president in February of 2007 was one met with little enthusiasm. Of course there were the many supporters that he had had his entire political career, but that was far less than Hilary Clinton who was, at the time, the leading Democratic nominee. Hilary was very well known to the people, as besides from being a former president’s wife, she had also served in the Senate for six years, as opposed to Barack, who was a relatively new politician. With Web 2.0, however, this all soon changed. With the launch of my.barackobama.com in the middle of 2007, people everywhere were soon logged on and aware of whom this politician was. Since people were given the opportunity to set up events to bring awareness to Obama, as well as the opportunity to post information about whom Barack actually is, a lot of the country that didn’t know this man were immediately let aware. Since people who didn’t know Barack Obama were beginning to visit the my.barackobama site, new information began to be posted which allowed the site’s audience to learn more about his ideas. On one page comparing the issues of Obama and McCain, it reads, “During his tenure in Washington and in the Illinois State Senate, Barack Obama has accumulated a record of bipartisan success.” Not only was this an opportunity to promote Barack, but it also gave people some background on the man, allowing them to know who he actually is. Much like other internet sensations, it was the Web 2.0 ability allowing people to share themselves that popularized the once unknown and ignored Barack Obama, and allowed him to get the Democratic nomination in January 2008 over Hilary Clinton.
Another benefit to Web 2.0 is the access it gives people to those they may have otherwise been unable to reach. With some sites such as Facebook or Myspace, they can do so through personal messages on the site, however, there are other places online where people can get complete contact information with somebody they would have otherwise been unable to reach. Web 2.0 has allowed for people to find long lost relatives, some of who may have been put up for adoption or at one time believed to be dead. Although this may seem to be a great advance for society, it is in fact also a negative effect of Web 2.0 in the way that it may be used. In Michigan, a woman used this Web 2.0 function to locate her son who she had given up for adoption many years prior. Rather than just begin a polite online conversation with him however, she used it as a way to meet the minor somewhere and rape him. As perverse as that may be, it is the improper use of Web 2.0 such as that which makes it a negative influence on society. It may also be argued that Barack Obama’s use of Web 2.0 to allow anyone to get into contact with him, or vice versa, through his Twitter, Facebook, and other blogging accounts, is negative as he has a job to do, and can’t do it with his mind everywhere else. This sounds similar to the voice of every parent with a child who owns a laptop, Blackberry, or iPhone, and perhaps if Web 2.0 were as addicting as it seems then there would be an issue. However, these negative views on Web 2.0 come only from the misuse of the new technology. Web 2.0 creates the ability for people to let the President know that something must be done about a certain issue, and as long as the President knows the issues of a single person don’t come before the nation’s issues, then things should be fine. Web 2.0 also allows people to find their lost relatives, and as long as people are using this tool in a proper manner and not to stalk or pursue someone they shouldn’t, then again there’s no issue. With Web 2.0 tons of criminals (including sex offenders) are brought to justice everyday, because what they post online or do online can be tracked and the police are able to find them when they couldn’t have otherwise.
So even though Williams says through his article that Web 2.0 is a distraction more than anything, it seems very clear that Johnson was more right in assuming Web 2.0 is a great advance for our society. Web 2.0 not only provides people with the opportunity to connect with each other, but it also gives people access to people they otherwise couldn’t, and gives more recognition to some people. Without Web 2.0 there is very little chance that Barack Obama could have made all the advancement that he did from being an unknown Senate member to being elected the President of the United States. Johnson might not be fully correct in saying that the public is now so fully prominent in providing online information that it “has a microphone”, but it is at least being given the opportunity to grow and become more wide-spread.
As Web 2.0 continues to grow, there is no telling what may be in store for society. As more and more site become interactive, it seems as though things will continue to remain democratic. The amount of useless trivial information is bound to increase, but as will the knowledgeable resources that people continually seek out. As communities go with the trend of owning their own Web page, we will surely see people becoming more and more aware of the world that is outside of their own. Even when people search only for what interests them, with the increase in sites, they are bound to run into things that are new and exciting, and definitely not something they would have expected to discover otherwise. Web 2.0 seems like it will be responsible for allowing everyone to get out in the open what they have always believed and thought, and at the same time will bring everyone together, knowing they are all the same, even in just the most miniscule of ways.

Works Cited
"About Organizing for America." BarackObama.com. Web. 23 Nov. 2009.
.

Lacy, Sarah. Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and
the Rise of Web 2.0. New York, N.Y.: Gotham, 2008.

"Michigan Mom Found Long-Lost Son Online, Raped Him." MomLogic. GNH
Productions, Inc., 12 Sept. 2009. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
.

Obama, Barack. "Barack Obama's Twitter." Twitter. Web. 24 Nov. 2009. .

Stanton, Jim. "The Man Behind Obama's Online Election Campaign - Web 2.0
Convergence." Government Technology Blogs: IT Bloggers from the Public
Sector. E.Republic, Inc., 20 Apr. 2009. Web. 21 Nov. 2009.
.

Tuten, Tracy L. Advertising 2.0: Social Media Marketing in a Web 2.0 World. Westport,
Conn: Praeger, 2008.