The President Of Russia Is A Blogger: But Is He The Only National Leader Out There Who Blogs?
Of all the people on Earth, the last person I would expect to blog would be the President of Russia. Why? Because history has it that the leaders of Russia have never been known to be flexible thinkers, which imho is a "must" to be a blogger. Would not ya all agree, my fellow bloggers?
And yet, President Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev does keep a blog – and from the looks of it, he blogs with a certain degree of interest and even enthusiasm. It looks like Medvedev’s blog is not just another promotional “about me” page put together by a bunch of government PR people. I can usually sense when a person actually spends some time on their blog and takes time to read the comments to revise their content accordingly. And, I can say Medvedev’s blog is not just a barrage of unconnected and wordy posts. Medvedev also seems to have a knack for videoblogging. Sometimes, he just seems to get that old webcam going, and records video messages for his online audience.
Russia’s TV Channel One reported just recently that the number of comments on Medvedev’s blog is approaching 110,000! In his video entry devoted to the one year anniversary of his blog’s existence (see below), Medvedev notes that he takes time to read all of the comments, saying he likes the fact that people do not just complain to him, but also offer viable solutions to some of the problems. He said he hoped that people would eventually stop thinking that blogging in not a "President's thing to do."
Medvedev can even be found on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/ru_medvedev
Oh, and he uses a Mac. So, PC people, shriek!
But, is Mr. Medvedev the only political leader out there who blogs or engages in the social media one way or another?
Well, you would be surprised. Here is a list of political leaders who tapped their feet into the unfamiliar social media waters:
- the controversial President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad used to blog here http://www.ahmadinejad.ir/ but his last post dates to December 2007
- Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is big on blogging and is all-in-all quite a media type. He currently blogs here http://blog.planalto.gov.br/. What is more, de Silva hosts his own radio show - Café com o Presidente
- Australia’s Kevin Rudd blogs here http://www.kevinpm.com.au/
- Shimon Perez of Israel is here http://www.haaretz.com/peres
- British PM Gordon Brown can be found here http://gordon-brown.blogspot.com/ (**authenticity questionable)
- Queen Elizabeth II of the U.K. has a YouTube channel of her own -- The Royal Channel, offering some relatively fresh content and boasting over 2 million views
- Well, Queen Elizabeth is certainly not the only one with YouTube ambitions. The Vatican also has a channel with one million channel views
- Portuguese president Aníbal Cavaco Silva is on Twitter at http://twitter.com/presidencia
- Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has a radio show of his own -- Alo Presidente has produced a whopping 341 episodes
- Now, Queen Rania, the queen of Jordan, gets the #1 media guru title from me. She is all over platforms. She has a YouTube channel, a website and a Twitter account -- all of which seem to be rather current and worth a read.
What was really surprising to me is that some of the key political leaders are nowhere to be found on the Web. No Sarkozy, no Obama, no Merkel blogging or Tweeting. Instead, politicians with more-or-less visible web presence are in charge of the countries that are far from being political powerhouses on the international arena. Mr. Medvedev seems to be one of the few exceptions...
**Big thanks to my friend Luiz Brandao Jr for helping me assemble all this info.
November 8th, 2009 - 05:14
Cool! I wouldn’t have seen that coming from the President of Russia, either. I don’t know if you have to be really flexible to be a blogger (though it’s no doubt an asset), but I was thinking more you’d have to be flexible to see it as a viable way for a president to communicate, as opposed to, as he said, “not a President’s thing”. This is a great post though; definitely checking out some of those links!
(p.s. I think Obama does have a Twitter account, though it’s probably at least partially run by aides. It’s http://twitter.com/barackobama)
November 8th, 2009 - 13:47
Be aware that the Gordon Brown blog is in fact a spoof site! I don’t remember if I told you that before, but anyways I think you should remove it from the list.
I will quote here an interesting comment I found on the web: “(…) making the most of new technology also involves defensive techniques to make sure that YOUR message gets across rather than someone else’s. (…)” for instance “(…) making sure that Gordon has a clearly marked official blog which is easily found (because if it does exist I can’t find it) and which performs well in the search engines.”
November 8th, 2009 - 16:23
Thanks, Luiz. Although there is hardly anything indicating that Gordon Brown’s blog is a spoof, I will make a note in the post.
November 9th, 2009 - 00:37
Well, there is a lot of things indicating that it IS a spoof site. The fact that it is hosted at Blogspot.com would suffice for me. But you can also take the content of the site as another indication, for instance:
“With Ken, I am also endorsing two new major public arts projects which will pour hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayer’s money into a two new statues; one of Chairman Mao in Hyde Park (…) and another of a 700 foot tall lesbian, cast in solid bronze and situated in Trafalgar square, illuminated at night and visible all across London to remind us of the privileges of living in a modern society.”