The Barraco Barner Phenomenon
Tweets go viral everyday but I don't think Gemma Worral anticipated her 140 characters to be retweeted thousands of times.
This tweet might be really amusing of some but to others, including me it is rather shocking. Has political disengagement really come this far?
I don't believe Gemma is the only British citizen who doesn't know that the United Kingdom does not have a President. In fact, some might still think that David Cameron's title is President of the United Kingdom rather than Prime Minister.
The whole 'Barack Obama is "our" President'-Thing was a bit harder to for me to come to terms with. For me it seems like common knowledge to know that Barack Obama is the President of the United States - regardless of the fact that I do study politics. Everyone who watched the news since 2009 should know that this man is somehow important and AMERICAN (even I can figure out his accent).
Then I started thinking - what if I printed out pictures of heads of states and showed them to people, would they know their names and more importantly what country they represent? I believe that Barack Obama is quite an extreme case, because of how much media coverage he gets. Similarly I believe most people would know who Angela Merkel, Francois Hollande and David Cameron are. However, do you know who Fredrik Reinfeldt, Aníbal Cavaco Silva or Miloš Zeman are? Exactly (google is your friend).
Now, on of the main arguments of Gemma's critics is that she should have known who Barack Obama is. I totally agree yet, I believe that knowing who the American President is should not be the only important factor: One should be aware who is the key political figure of the country they live in.
How far have people backed away from politics if they don't even know who is governing their country but are well aware what is happening in the Big Brother House? Maybe it is time for politicians to rethink the ways in which citizens can be reached. Social Media seems like a great idea - but please remember to always double check what you're tweeting
