President Obama’s team tailors State of the Union for age of Twitter and YouTube

The State of the Union address is a century-old tradition that has served to set the president's agenda for the coming year and reflect on the previous one in front of Congress and the country, but in 2015, just giving a speech in prime time is no longer enough. The platform that introduced to the world the Four Freedoms and the War on Poverty is now a Twitter-friendly, YouTube-able event to be consumed in as many ways as Americans have screens.

The current state of the State of the Union is either the handiwork or the fault of the Obama White House, depending on your point of view. This White House believes it brought the civic ritual into the social age, adapting as necessary to keep it relevant. Others say the speech, as an annual American moment, is going the way of the fireside chat. "Social media is killing the State of the Union," said presidential historian Allan Lichtman, "and the White House is doing everything it can to use social media to keep it alive."