YouTube: The House Hub and Senate Hub are the Digital Equivalents of a Backstage Pass to the Government
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At today’s YouTube panel discussion, Broadcasting the World: The New Ecosystem for News Online, the YouTube News & Politics team announced the launch of The Senate Hub and The House Hub –
So, why are your elected leaders coming to YouTube? The short answer is: you. Your use of YouTube and other online platforms to speak up on political issues and hold your leaders accountable has shown just how powerful this medium can be. You’ve shown your elected officials that in order to be in contact with you, they need to come to the platforms you use most, and engage with you directly… The House Hub and Senate Hub are the digital equivalents of a backstage pass to your government.
The hubs are well designed with interactive maps that take visitors to the video channels of their senators and congressmen. While the advertising free hubs are maintained by YouTube, each individual congressperson’s channel is maintained by his or her office. Several of them, however, have disabled comments, prompting Frederic Lardinois at ReadWriteWeb and Tam Vo at VentureBeat to ask if these hubs are being used as one way broadcast channels.
According to NYT, the official government channels on YouTube are prompted by last Fall’s controversy over Congressmen using online video, which led to the Let Our Congress Tweet petition by Sunlight Foundation.
President elect Barack Obama already has a YouTube channel, prompting Frederic Lardinois at ReadWriteWeb to ask if YouTube is getting preferential treatment as a result of Google CEO Eric Schimdt being close to Barack Obama –
I think Frederic is being a little paranoid. YouTube is the biggest online video service after all, and even though services like TubeMogul do make it incredibly easy to post videos to multiple online video services, there is a lot of work involved in customizing the ad free interactive hubs. So, it’s a good start and I’m sure we’ll see similar initiatives on other video sharing sites soon.
Cross-posted at Social Media in Business, Development and Government.
Related posts:
- New America Foundation Panel Discussion — Wiki White House: Can Obama Use Technology to Transform Government?
- Has Google-YouTube Lost Online Video Market Share?
- The First YouTube Video Awards
- The Promise and Myth of Barack Obama’s Government 2.0
- YouTube Panel Discussion — Broadcasting the World: The New Ecosystem for News Online