LONDON, July 30 (Itar-Tass) — Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev believes that only those managers who actively use new information technologies for real-time communication with people have a political future.
“The information environment is the best guarantee, the best vaccine against totalitarianism and return to the sad past. No government in any country, including in the most difficult parts of the Arab East, today cannot ignore the existence of a vast network of communications that arise, develop and live regardless of the authorities,” the RF prime minister in an interview with The Times.
He noted that “it is necessary to create the legal framework for the development of social networks, but it is impossible to block them.”
“This means only one thing: no leader can be modern and adequate to the existing social conditions if he ignores the new information environment. Any manager must keep track of what is happening there,” Medvedev is certain.
“Only a person who is in direct contact with the people has a political future,” the prime minister said. He recalled that “earlier it was necessary to this end to walk around visiting people which was sometimes practiced.” “This means that once or twice a month a person goes somewhere, a crowd gathers around him, shouting something, and the communication is fragmented,” Medvedev said.
The prime minister himself reads every day about 50 messages addressed to him on the Internet. Moreover, if he finds any “harsh” messages he prints them and writes orders to his subordinates on the printouts.
“A person who fails to master this tool has no future as a politician,” Medvedev stressed.