The November 24, 2008 cover of Time Magazine depicting Barack Obama as the new FDR – the President-elect in specs, gray suit and hat, sitting in car, cigarette jutting optimistically upward – has the caption, "The New New Deal".The comparison, of course, is to FDR and Obama both first taking office in the throes of financial crises and catastrophe, and to Obama’s plans for public work projects, to help Americans get back to work, just as FDR did in the Great Depression of the 1930s.
But the announcement - a day after the Time Magazine cover became public on November 13, 2008 – that Obama’s radio address on November 15, 2008 would also be made available on YouTube, showed that Obama would be the new FDR not only in New Deal economic, but in the employment of new new media to communicate to the American people.
Roosevelt’s "fireside chats" - 30 of them from 1933-1944 - had used the new medium of his day, radio, to communicate directly to the American people, as no President had ever done before. Roosevelt and his advisers understood how to employ the advantages of new radio, which allowed anyone talking through it, including the President, to sound and seem as if he was talking directly to Americans, in their living rooms, bedrooms, of whatever room their radio happened to be situated in their homes. The effect was powerful, unprecedented, profound. My parents, who grew up in the Great Depression, often told me how they felt Roosevelt was almost a kind of father or parent – which makes sense, for whose voice would otherwise be talking to you in the inner sanctums of your home. When World War II came, my parents felt comforted by Roosevelt’s voice. They felt that as long as FDR was talking to them and all Americans, the country would be ok. (See my 1997 The Soft Edge: A Natural History and Future of the Information Revolution for more on radio and FDR.)Americans stopped listening to radio that way in the 1950s, when television became the predominant political broadcast medium, and radio became a vehicle of rock ‘n’ roll. By 1960, people who saw the Kennedy-Nixon debates on television thought Kennedy won, in contrast to those who heard the debates on radio and gave the victory to Nixon – unfortunately for Nixon, some 90% of Americans had televisions in their homes by 1960. And in the election of 2008 and its aftermath, YouTube began to replace television as the predominant political audio-visual medium.
Obama’s YouTube addresses take advantage of all the characteristics of this new new medium, just as FDR’s fireside chats did with radio in the 1930s and 40s. In place of the voice in the home, the fatherly reassurance, that radio conveyed for FDR, Obama on YouTube suits the world of 2008, in which people want to be in touch with their President, or at least hear and see him, at times of their rather than his choosing. Like a President on radio, a President on YouTube is still conveying reassurance – but it’s a reassurance for people on the move, accustomed to being in the driver’s seat about when and how they receive their information, including Presidential addresses. In the fast-changing 21st century, the biggest reassurance about information is knowing that it's there.
For example, if you'd like to listen to Obama's first YouTube address as President-elect on November 15, 2008, you can do that right here ...
See also Obama's Speeches and FDR's Fireside Chats
11 comments:
Professor, I am sorry to hear that you subscribe to the most dangerous myth in history - that FDR saved our country's economy. In fact, quite the opposite is true; FDR and his "New Deal" prolonged and exacerbated the Great Depression. There are plenty of excellent resources on the subject. I recommend reading this article before responding:
http://mises.org/story/1623
Here's one more for now:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/anderson/anderson154.html
Let me know if you want any more information.
Henry, I'm sorry to see that you subscribe to that anti-FDR nonsense that has been around since the late 1940s.
Let me cut to the quick: I've known numerous people, from all economic backgrounds, who lived through the Great Depression. No one says FDR was perfect - for example, I think his attempt to increase the number of Justices on the Supreme Court was very wrong - but no one I know who lived in that era has any doubt that FDR saved the country.
It was not just the details of his monetary policy. It was that he put people back to work, and gave Americans the feeling that there were better days ahead.
And as to the point that FDR really hurt labor: If that is the case, why is that unions in America supported his reelection?
The truth is Republican policies got us into the Great Depression, and Democratic policies helped get us out of it.
PS - And as to claim at the end of the first article you cite that "it was capitalism that finally ended the Great Depression, not FDR's hair-brained cartel".
In fact, it was World War II, which massively put people back to work, and which built upon the economic benefits of FDR's policies.
By the way, I find it's a sure sign that a writer doesn't know what he or she is talking about when they resort to insult, such as "hair-brained". When you have logic and evidence on your side, you don't need insult.
Not that you wrote that article - but you asked me to read it...
Paul you should check out Fox's new 5 part special "Television and the Presidency" hosted by Chris Wallace. The first segment aired Saturday night and was excellant. You would really enjoy it.
Thanks, Frank - I just set the DVR to record it tomorrow morning.
Paul: FDR's greatest strength during the Great Depression was his Leadership. His frequent fireside chats instilled hope during one of the bleakest eras in our history. He restored the psychology of a literally depressed populace. FDR marshaled massive government aid to homeowners, workers, businesses -- in today's parlance FDR rescued both Main Street & Wall Street. His bold New Deal plan provided relief for the unemployed, recovery of the economy (with, as you reminded us, the help of WW2), and reform of the economic & banking systems. FDR's legacy include some of today's fundamental commercial institutions/programs: the FDIC, SEC, and Social Security.
/jimy_max
I just read a related article dismisses the widely held theory that massive spending projects and war is good for the economy.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?pageId=81193
I also recommend reading "America's Great Depression" by the brilliant economist Murray Rothbard.
anon: I'm familiar with both, and they both are wrong.
Paul Krugman, Nobel laureate in economics, is correct.
When FDR took office, America was in the Great Dpression. When FDR died in 1945, the Depression was over.
His policies, and then the War, got us out of the Great Depression. Yes, there are always alternate explanations, but Occam's Razor says you go with the least convoluted: which, in this case, is that the policies etc of FDR got out us of the Depression. Arguing that we got out of the Depression despite his policies may be theoretically possible, but it's much more far-fetched.
If Henry Hazlitt has taught us one thing it is that broking windows does not lead to economic growth:
http://jim.com/econ/chap02p1.html
Keynes famously advised FDR to solve the depression in 1936 by building a lot of boats, taking them out to the middle of the ocean and sinking them. Then, building more boats. But again, breaking windows doesn't create growth. Growth only comes when the market is allowed to function properly. Capitalism saved us from the great depression and capitalism is the only thing that can save us from the current financial crisis. And, Hayek would say capitalism is the only way to switch tracks and avoid the road to serfdom. We can beat this crisis, if the regulators will get out of the way and let capitalism work its magic.
Rudy - but Hayek (whose book The Road to Serfdom I think makes some good points) misses the point that Keynes (and FDR) were attempting to save capitalism, not replace it.
Which they obviously did - that's why we're still living a capitalist society today, and enjoyed the benefits in the 1990s.
It's not a question, now, of regulators. It's the government coming in and supporting banks, auto companies, etc so that Americans don't lose their money and jobs.
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