The Election Campaign goes Interactive with Web 2.0
By Azam on November 5, 2008 
This elections season will go down in history as the first election that utilized the power and influence the Internet to a new level and to a real advantage. John F Kennedy was the first President that campaigned as the Age of the Television became the main influencer in the political debate. The days of the smoky backroom politics’ party machine held exclusively by the heads of the political party insiders’ days are over. The Interactive aspect of the web has been a powerful tool to leverage and influence the election campaign. Obama campaign used the medium to the advantage and likely proved to be a key advantage in the election and outcome of the result of the popular vote.
The Internet as a medium has the ability to reach the public in a number of ways that reinforces contact and message of the political campaign. The Internet has the ability to deliver and measure the response in a similar manner internet media and advertisers have used the interactive element to their advantage. The ability to quickly put out media content on the web and view users traffic and response is a tremendous advantage over traditional media. The ability to instantly connect with your user target base or constituents is very powerful.
Power to the People
Andrew Rasiej from the Techpresident blog,
“The power to control the message is no longer in the hands of the political parties and candidates or the mainstream media.
“It’s now shared by the public at large. They can distribute a piece of media on YouTube faster in a 15-minute news cycle than traditional media can in a 24-hour news cycle”
Web 2.0 Elements
The Obama campaign and supports utilized social networking to their advantage: facebook, friendfeed, twitter, Digg, YouTube, etc. Political blogs (Huffington Post, Politico, and Daily Kos) and traditional news sites have covered the campaign more closely than before and the ability to post comments increased level of activity and response. Traditional Media used their web properties to engage users in the debate. Simple web tools are employed to poll, respond, and measures the audience response are efficient tools for ability of the campaign to devise and measure their message effectiveness. Also, the Internet provides a platform to immediately respond to messages against or ability to counter message form opponents.
Money & Leverage
The Internet as a campaign tool lowers the cost and extends the reach. The ability to tap into the social network of friends, families, and colleagues is powerful. The ability to virally pass digital content containing campaign message was employed and the costs involved next to nothing compared to traditional media. The camping was organized using the web to direct individuals and the message. The web itself was used to raise enormous amounts of money never seen before. The Obama campaign raised a staggering $650 million from some 3 million donors for his presidential campaign. From the amount raised, close to 50% of money raised was from donors contributing $200 or less. The money raised also proved effectively used in buying time on traditional media as the 37min infomercial campaign message across three major networks.
Traditional Media
Traditional media still plays a key part in reaching the audience in a medium that has the most impact. The internet extends the message much further with its reach as media is available and shared. Content produced on traditional medial finds its way onto the web and can be mixed/mashed a number of times and way to reach a larger number of individuals than by the initial audience viewing. Campaign speeches and excerpts routinely wend up on YouTube and blogs for further dissemination. Digital Media content proved to be more popular on the web than on broadcast television, and some items only available on the web proved to be the most popular. Saturday Night Live experienced a larger audience online (50M ) than from the shows largest audience ever recorded by SNL on their live programming with Tina Fey doing Sarah Palin skits
Future
The future of the Internet as a campaign tool will likely evolve in a greater number of ways than we have not seen before. As the number of devices and number of individuals are connected, the effectiveness of the web in political campaign will only increase. Also, the blending of traditional media and newer forms of communications on the web and through wireless medium will also increase their influence and effectiveness as an interactive communication tool with a greater reach. We are just seeing the beginning of a new era of greater communication and opportunities for users to access information to make better decisions. It is more likely the individual will be surrounded by information in the hyper active environment. Most will have more information than they will likely need or want unless they remain undecided.
Reading List
WSJ Web Data Offer New Slant on Traditional Horse Race
Bloomberg Obama Leveraged Record Fundraising, Spending to Defeat Rivals
Obama Counts on Text Messages to Drive Turnout of Youth, Blacks
BBC Top Hits of the YouTube Election
AFP Obama surfs the Web to the White House
Categories : Media & Ads, TechTags : , Digg, Election, Facebook, Friendfeed, Google, Internet, Obama, Obama Campaign, Social networking, twitter, Web 2.0, YouTube