President Biden, former Presidents Obama and Clinton, and actors Jason Bateman, Will Arnett and Sean Hayes discussed the challenges of communicating political messages in today’s media environment during a March podcast interview recently released.
With disinformation prevalent, Biden said he campaigned with Obama and Clinton to help get his message out.
“Well, a lot has changed. A lot has changed in how you communicate. A lot has changed in information, and so much disinformation out there. You know, it’s really – and it’s hard to communicate even today when you do accomplish some improbable things,” Biden said.
The presidents noted it is difficult to break through biased algorithms and news feeds on social media.
“Just keep talking about it. You have to connect with people as to how they’re being affected, why it’s happening. And, you know, one of the things that really startles me is I’m optimistic. I’m genuinely optimistic,” Biden said.
“And starting to break through. There’s so much we have opportunities to get done in ways that these guys [Obama and Clinton] set up and we’re now going to be able to close down. For example, when we got elected, we were told we couldn’t get anything done. We couldn’t get anything passed,” Biden added.
Obama added the media ecosystem has shifted to social platforms, making it tough for political messages to penetrate.
“Part of what happened is that whole ecosystem moved onto social media. And once it’s on social media and it’s on an algorithm, and everybody’s just getting their news selected essentially to suit their biases, penetrating that is real tough. It is very hard,” Obama said.
They emphasized the importance of connecting with people over issues that affect them.
