# 2657
Over the past couple of years the United State's Federal government has begun to seriously look at how they can utilize the `new media' of the Internet.
- In 2007, this blogger took part in a 5-week pandemic leadership blog, sponsored by the HHS (Department of Health and Human Services), and literally tens of thousands of visitors read the dozens of blogs, and hundreds of comments about pandemic preparation.
- Last year, the HHS invited members of the blogging community to attend a pandemic communications tabletop exercise in Washington D.C.
- Secretary Leavitt of the HHS became the first cabinet level official to blog on a regular basis.
- On Monday, January 12th, 2009 FEMA used Twitter to hold a press briefing.
FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has now established a presence on Youtube, the video sharing website used by millions of people every day.
They have, as of this writing, 47 videos online.
This article from Federal Computer Week.
FEMA starts channel on YouTube
- By Alice Lipowicz
- Jan 08, 2009
Joining a handful of other federal agencies with an official presence on YouTube, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has established a channel on the popular Web site to publicize its disaster-recovery efforts in video format.
“Beginning in earnest in 2008, FEMA started efforts to integrate social media and new media into its communications and outreach efforts,” a news release from Jan. 6 stated. Those efforts included creating the FEMA Channel on YouTube along with a Twitter site, the release said.
So far, the FEMA Channel on YouTube. is not getting a lot of traffic for its 44 videos showing disaster-recovery efforts. Sixty-seven subscribers have signed up, generating 6,276 page views to date.
The most popular videos on the agency's channel show agency officials discussing temporary housing, federal disaster assistance and flood assistance. Although “moderated” comments are permitted on the site, there were no comments visible for the four videos reviewed by a reporter.
To visit the FEMA Channel, click HERE.
