On March 24, Barack Obama invited his nation to visit whitehouse.gov to ask him or vote for the questions that concern them the most on the economy. The message was posted on Facebook and Youtube .
The result: 92,937 people submitted 103,996 questions which obtained 3,603,622 votes on the main sectors affected by the crisis such as education, the reform of the health system, SMEs or the automotive industry.
Is it the economic crisis that motivates this gesture? Is it the slippage from the bonus payout of more than $165 million to AIG executives a week earlier ? Let us remember that this firm benefits from 180 billion dollars in aid paid by Washington. Will they really consider people's opinions? Or is it just the new tangent taken by the new administration? From the outset Obama reiterated this in his speech: his priority is to share with the American people what his government wants to do to resolve the economic crisis and the sharing must be done on both sides.
And how does he do it? By “using the power of the Internet”. Nothing more generic as a quote, but the difference lies in its basis. Like its counterparts, the Obama administration uses it as a tool for dialogue between the government and the citizen. A tool that is more instantaneous, more flexible and less costly than the round tables at the Bouchard-Taylor commission. A more communicative tool, more catalyst for opinions, more democratic than the sites of other governments.
Although banal, this initiative is part of the era of transparency and conversation established by the Obama administration since the beginning of its political reign. The success of Barack Obama's campaign has been cited many times, and unlike the Harper and Charest governments, the dialogue did not stop after the election. We can identify the best practices from the five levels of a government 2.0 :
– Levels 1 and 2 : Allow employees to communicate differently through blogs or social networks and use them strategically to adequately inform citizens.
The White House blog is updated daily and we do not hesitate to use Facebook to promote an announcement. All government videos are on YouTube. The “ Weekly Addresses ” are broadcast in the form of videos and inform people about the announcements that will be made for the following week.
– Level 3 and 5 : Develop a platform to facilitate debate with the population and use this participation to change internal processes.
The “ Open for question ” experiment, which mobilized people to ask questions of the government. The latter will base itself on the demands of citizens to change its policies or better orient its areas of intervention.
– Level 4 : Communicate all information on non-sensitive data produced by the government.
On the recovery.gov site , you can read the 3 axes of its mission: Education, transparency and accountability. We educate citizens on the recovery plan, we communicate the sectors that will be financed and at what level by the recovery plan of the Obama administration.
What a difference with his predecessors who advocated a political practice inspired by McCarthyism, tinged with suspicion and lack of communication with citizens! What an example for our government, which calls itself “social democrat”, which has turned off the communication tap since its re-election!
