http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2015/05/26/heres-how-the-first-president-of-the-social-media-age-has-chosen-to-connect-with-americans/By Juliet Eilperin May 26 at 7:31 PM
The gathering in Beverly Hills in early April had all the elements of a Hollywood pitch meeting: influential celebrities, powerful agents, marketing moguls and social media strategists.
The only hint of difference was the presence of a lone government official: Paulette Aniskoff, head of the White House Office of Public Engagement. Aniskoff had journeyed from Washington to the offices of the entertainment company Live Nation for a strategy session on how YouTube and Vine stars could use their digital celebrity to promote some of the Obama administration’s key policies.
The meeting, which ran twice as long as the hour allotted, in many ways exemplifies how central digital media and audience engagement have become to the functioning of the Obama White House.
The online stars in attendance — mostly young, video-sharing entrepreneurs with large niche audiences and powerful personal connections to their millions of subscribers — are part of a robust online and social media culture at the White House that is likely to forever change the way American presidents relate to the public.
Barack Obama rose to prominence as a politician who could deliver broad, sweeping speeches with universal themes, and he has leveraged the opportunities of the digital age to maximum political advantage. But often, this now means speaking narrowly to his base voters or to groups disconnected from the mainstream political process.
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