Twitter and the modern world leader.
Coming off of Wednesday’s Cronkite Global Conversation, one thing that I found particularly interesting was hearing how Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is the most followed person in Russia on the social media site Twitter (with 198,823 followers). With countries around the world entering the “social media age”, we are left to watch and see how world leaders respond and react. In the case of Medvedev, he has clearly chosen to embrace the use of Twitter as part of his personal branding. Other world leaders are also taking up social media as a platform of representation. Consider Barack Obama, who currently has 12,834,291 followers. For some slightly less obvious Twitter users, consider this article (although slightly outdated) from the Huffington Post about world leaders who tweet.
With such a new medium, inevitably there will be growing pains as leaders look to take on Twitter as a means of communication with those they lead. I will use Medvedev as an example again, and point to his “accidental retweet” of a profane insult aimed at his political opposition back in December of 2011.
Even Obama hasn’t been immune to the harshest Twitter lesson of all: the unfollow button. He reportedly lost some 40,000 followers in a 24-hour span after engaging in a day-long Twitter campaign.
With more and more leaders looking to use Twitter to communicate, it is important to remember that the person behind the tweets we see often may not be the leader themselves, but could be someone from their campaign or an aide. The internet removes the visual or audible connection to the leader we have in something like a speech. It will, however, certainly prove useful in some fashion as technology continues to evolve and play a more important role in policy.
Love in the time of cultural shock
Well, first things first.
Having once been caught red-handed for (allegedly) “misquoting” Martin Luther King in one of my previous posts, I would like to make a confession: The title of this entry is not my brainchild either.
You have rightly guessed, if you are an avid Marquez admirer, that it self-evidently emanates from my most favorite fiction, Love in the Time of Cholera. Poor Marquez of Columbia could have lived ecstatically even without writing this book (1985) or clinching the Noble Prize in Literature (1982). After all, only one introduction suffices: He is the author of modern classic One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967).
Confession made.
I think the period of my cultural shock has commenced. My cultural shock entails divergent symptoms from what had been inculcated in my mind during a pre-departure orientation in Islamabad. They said as the period of excitement ends, you will start getting nostalgic and frustrated towards the local people.
There is nothing as such on my side. What irks me is the sense of stagnation. I have not been able to make ample girl friends here. I had thought it was much easier to start a conversation with the Americans. Talk to people, I am told. But what about?
I met this fellow (with small caps, it should be safely assumed that he was NOT a Humphrey Fellow) at Starbuck at the Taylor Place.
“Hey do you like football?” asked he, a freshman from Philadelphia.
“Yes, I love football,” I exclaimed.
“Which one is your favorite team?” he asked.
“Brazil: You know my dad loved Pele and I love Ronaldo,” I added instantly.
“Wait a minute, dude” said the American lad who was now joined by another, “do you mean you love soccer?
“Yes,” I said naively.
“Soccer sucks,” they denounced. (Forgive their French)
I wished Ivy was somewhere around me to reiterate the difference between soccer and football.
I am not frustrated with the American people at all, if that is one of the symbols of cultural shock.
I have in fact started loving them for some of their unique qualities. (I don’t mean Americans only possess these qualities). Let me explain.
While looking for a digital voice recorder at Target Store (agreed, Best Buy is the unsolicited suggestion from all sides), I picked up a book not necessarily because of its title or the contents.
Open is the autobiography of former American tennis icon Andre Agassi, whom I eulogized since the days of his long golden hair. As I started reading the book, I found the writing style as extraordinary as Agassi’s hard-hitting shots. Having read barely a few chapters, I have prematurely added this book as one of my favorites. Good writing is my weakness. I instantly surrender before creative writing.
Having read this book in parts, I have started loving Americans for their good habit of writing very candid autobiographies. I deeply enjoyed reading President Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage, Nixon’s In the Arena, Bill Clinton’s My Life and Obama’s Dreams from My Father.
I have a silly (but a very valid) question (if posed in Pakistan) for my American friends: Do all these celebrities write their own autobiographies? (sic)
I know an “auto”-biography has to be self-written by the person featured in the book. My Pakistani experience is just haunting me. I am just wondering if people like Agassi, a sportsman, (of course, I am not underestimating the chap) can write so well.
In Pakistan, two autobiographies become overwhelmingly popular (read notorious if you are anti-dictatorship)
Friends; not Masters is the “autobiography” (stenography) of Pakistan’s first military dictator, General Ayub Khan.
In the Line of Fire is the “autobiography” of the country’s last military dictator General Pervez Musharraf.
Do you know what is common (besides, of course, not having been authored by the dictators themselves) between both “best-selling” autobiographies?
Iltaf Gohar, a leading Pakistani journalist, wrote the book for the military president until it was revealed several years later.
As the veteran cliche goes: History repeated itself: Iltaf’s son Humayun Gohar, also a journalist, wrote Pervez Musharraf’s so-called autobiography after forty years.
The current prime minister of Pakistan Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani has also written an autobiography Chaah-e-Yusuf say Sadha (Cry of Joseph from Bottom of Pita) and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif also authored his autobiography Model Town ka beta but what is known about them the most is that they were written by shadow scribes.
They say cricket icon Javed Miandad did not write what is billed as his autobiography, Cutting Edge.
What are the trends in your countries? I am really keen to know.
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