As I write this, I’m watching the president’s State of the Union address via YouTube. Considering that it’s only been roughly 80 years since Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the first fireside chats via broadcast radio, it’s pretty amazing how far we’ve come.
Having said this, I imagine a portion of my readers’ stomach’s are turning because of partisan tendencies. We’re fresh from an election that some would consider a wound in America’s yet-to-be-published history books. Others would consider it a triumph for giving a voice to the voiceless and a boot to an elite establishment.
But I’m not particularly focused on either of these takes.
As I’m typing this, I’m amazed at the slides. YouTube’s broadcast came complete with graphs, images and stats that corresponded to the up-to-the-minute talking points for what the president was discussing. I believe I’ve just witnessed the first State of the Union PowerPoint presentation.
I’m skeptical that they actually used PowerPoint, mostly because there were no technological hang-ups or bugs and they didn’t need to reboot the teleprompter, but since “PowerPoint” has become a ubiquitous, brand-neutral term like Kleenex or Google, I’m OK with it.
When the president mentioned unemployment, a graph was shown illustrating the improvement since he took office. When he endorsed an initiative, statistics were shown backing up that initiative.
This was all done live and in well thought-out, designed strategy.
If you’ve made a PowerPoint before, you understand that you create your slides in order to back up your point.
It’s simple common sense, but it seems much more profound (and possibly questionable) when it happens during the State of the Union address.
Proponents will say it is an effort toward transparency. Putting up graphs and stats encourages direct fact-checking and lends more legitimacy to what President Obama was saying.
Opponents will more than likely lean toward emotional hypnosis, that showing vague graphs alongside impassioned language is an effort to lull the masses into an illusion of intellectual security and comfort.
I can’t help but see things in a different light. I think back 80 years, which is less time than my three living grandparents have been on Earth, and I imagine a day when people gathered around an analog box with wonder and heard the voice of what must have been a mythical president for the first time.
I imagine this with Samsung headphones in my ears and a Hewlett-Packard keyboard under my fingers.
And I look at the YouTube comments and Twitter and Facebook and the umpteen channels of discourse that we have at our fingertips.
And I look at my two daughters, who will hopefully never know a world without these deep channels of engagement with our democracy.
Whether they are Republicans, Democrats or (fingers crossed) something better, they will have more of a voice than we have had should they choose to exercise that freedom.
And this brings me to my point. Separate from your party, the Internet embodies the spirit of free speech.
It traces back to well before broadcast radio and FDR some 80 years ago, and it reaches forward indefinitely, spreading democracy beyond physical borders, across generations and into a future where we’re all better for it.
Jesse Bushkar is the CEO of Sysconn New Media Inc. He can be contacted at 912-356-9920 or jesse@sysconn.com.