/ 22 January 2009

Obama’s speech through different eyes

Like Jacob Zuma drawing on biblical references, Obama also rummaged around for suitable material for his inauguration speech.

In tiny Grahamstown this week, the local Grocott’s Mail featured a letter that accused the media of dressing up an exploitative United States by pedalling Barack Obama as the world’s political saviour.

The writer continued: ”Rolls and rolls of local content in many world broadcasters will have to wait aside as we witness the inauguration of Obama broadcast live worldwide.”

There’s a serious concern about expectation around Obama, but the letter’s line on local content comes across as rather quaint.

With SABC and e.tv both offering live coverage of the historic inauguration, I doubt many viewers were watching anything else on the box during the broadcast.

People don’t watch American TV because they are forced to — it’s because they’re interested in it.

Local content advocates have to compete with this at the best of times, and there’s really not much that can match the audio-visual appeal of Obama taking the oath.

Even those reporting the event for South Africa have to compete with each other. Their challenge is to find a ”value-add” that will lead viewers to choose their coverage — rather than that of their rivals.

Obama himself is, of course, able to attract a huge audience. There are lots of reasons why, and one is his use of language.

His speech on Tuesday had no grand or arty imagery. It relied instead on simple and familiar metaphors of storm clouds, and it traded on old myths of the US’s ancestral history and heroism triumphing in the end.

This is a smart guy who can talk to ordinary people without jargon. It is both of these aspects that construct an identity which is able to resonate with both the masses and the elite.

Like Jacob Zuma drawing on biblical references, Obama also rummaged around for suitable material. He found it not in donkeys and Jerusalem, however, but in the quotation about it being time ”to put away our childish ways”.

One could almost hear the audience think: ”Right on, Mr President: indeed, we identify with this echo of our own religious upbringing and transition to adulthood.”

Wall Street was more cynical about the speech for its lack of content about bailing out corporations. The fall in share price showed some of the real limits of impact beyond the rhetoric.

But to understand the power of the rhetoric, however, you can look at the IBM website ”Many Eyes”, where users generated a selection of visual analyses of the text.

One of them shows Obama’s transition from the ”we can” language of his campaign, to now ”we will”. His speech used this new phrase ten times in a positive sense, and said ”we will not” only twice.

A second visualisation highlights the most common key words, starting with ”us”, going through to ”will”, ”can”, ”new” and ”nation”.

The top 100 words he used are pictured in another graphic.

A more detailed third imaging of the speech shows the following words as also being prominent: ”America”, ”world”, ”must” and ”every”.

In a visual nutshell, you can see the key messages.

Should you want to see what helped get Obama into a position to make his speech as 44th president of the US, you can check out visuals of his travel at dopplr.com.

According to this site, last year he travelled 92% of the distance to the moon, on 234 trips while on the election trail. That yielded the same carbon footprint as the output of four Hummer vehicles.

Now we’re talking about compelling content capable of attracting audiences. Wouldn’t it be good to see similar visualisations of South African politicians as we approach our elections?

Meanwhile, an email message doing the rounds, seemingly from a sports presenter, reads:

”I know you people, please, please don’t start naming your children after the American President…

Obamanyana, Obamakayise, Obamazile, Obamafuthi, Obamazana, Obamsa, RaObama, MmaObama, Obamalia,NoObama, Obamawise, Obamason, Obamaness, Obamaration, Obamafull, Obamalaya, Obamaria, NoBarak, IxeshalikaBarak, Barakaraka, Barakesha, Barakyah, Rakkie, Obamalie, Bami, Obie etc.

Don’t start that mess! PLEASE!!

YOU HAVE OFFICIALLY RECEIVED THE MEMO AND PLEASE BEHAVE.”