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Diplomacy and New Media: A Rich Conversation Between James Fallows and John Podesta at Gov 2.0 Summit

Published by Casey Coleman on October 7th, 2009 under 2.0, Culture, Emerging technology, Participation,

It’s not often that a conference can synthesize relevant technology and policy communities, but the O’Reilly Media Gov 2.0 Summit did just that. The most compelling example of synthesizing technology and policy was the rich dialogue at the close of day one between James Fallows of the Atlantic Monthly and John Podesta, President and CEO of the Center for American Progress.

The dialogue between Fallows and Podesta revealed how each participant understood the role of new media in diplomacy and public policy. Like a hopeful prospector Podesta probed Fallows for evidence that new media was actively shaping public perception of US policy overseas. Fallows, who spent much of the last three years in China, maintained that new media has not yet become sufficiently mainstream to affect public perception. Based on Fallows’ observations, broadcast media, movies and music still play the fundamental role of shaping perception of America and Americans overseas.

Fallows engaged Podesta directly on health care reform. Podesta is optimistic that new media can effectively overcome institutional barriers inherent in traditional media by directly reaching a large enough demographic to influence the outcome.

The Pew Center's New Media Index shows evidence of interest in health care reform in the blogosphere. During the second week of August 24% of postings from bloggers were about health care. That same week on Twitter, however, only 3% of tweets pertained health care reform. The number one topic, at 16%, was Microsoft's support for Internet Explorer 6 through 2014. In fact, four of the top five topics on Twitter were technology-related, which could indicate the Twitter audience is more technology-oriented. However, blogging is more suited to analysis than Twitter's 140-character limit, so perhaps we should expect to find more policy discussions in the blogosphere.

Is new media sufficiently influential to affect diplomacy and policy outcomes? According to the dialogue between Fallows and Podesta as well as the New Media Index, there isn't enough evidence just yet, but health care is one key policy outcome to watch.




6 Comment(s)

  1. 1) Diplomacy and New Media: A Rich Conversation Between James Fallows and John Podesta at Gov 2.0 Summit
    ugg boots sale on 11/14/09 3:04:12

    Great article - very detailed and interesting .

  1. 2) Diplomacy and New Media: A Rich Conversation Between James Fallows and John Podesta at Gov 2.0 Summit
    Carolyn Barranca on 11/4/09 12:06:31

    It doesn't surprise me that those most inclined to use the new media are those who are least afraid of the technology. Seven or eight years ago the demographics for government websites also showed that the most prolific and successful users were younger tech savvy professionals. But if the medium is truly the messasge, then it's only a matter of time that the general public will realize the benefits of finding their own personalized resources via new media. It will evolve to more general audiences, just like the internet did. People will want real substance for the issues they are interested in.

  1. 3) Diplomacy and New Media: A Rich Conversation Between James Fallows and John Podesta at Gov 2.0 Summit
    gold on 10/28/09 12:56:00

    I like the point about twitter's audience being technology oriented - different social media networks attract users with different interests. I have a tumblr, which is a tumblog community that allows you to post photos and videos really easily, as well as interact with other community members. A lot of other users are really concerned about health care and there is healthy debate on it. Twitter is the medium getting a lot of attention right now, but not a place I have seen too much healthcare discussion because, like you say, the issue may be too large and nuanced to talk about in 140 characters.

  1. 4) re: Diplomacy and New Media: A Rich Conversation Between James Fallows and John Podesta at Gov 2.0 Summit
    Casey Coleman on 10/27/09 6:58:53

    You may have put up a test comment to see how long it takes to get posted. I have to review them first, per the usage policy, so it's not immediate. I try to look at the comments frequently but appreciate your patience if I don't get to it right away.

  1. 5) Diplomacy and New Media: A Rich Conversation Between James Fallows and John Podesta at Gov 2.0 Summit
    Anonymous on 10/23/09 10:05:25

    test

  1. 6) Diplomacy and New Media: A Rich Conversation Between James Fallows and John Podesta at Gov 2.0 Summit
    James White on 10/17/09 22:08:11

    We agree with new media. { Link }

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