/Big Question/ Net-time for democracy
09/12/2008 | Filed under Discover > Big Question
What impact do you think online activity had on the US election?
Ecommerce expert
Ben Dyer
Actinic
The US presidential election has been fascinating to watch and a marketing masterclass from both parties. This time around technology has played such an integral part in the race for the White House, it’s become as much part of the story as the candidates themselves.
Through the use of viral YouTube videos, micro blogs and blogging networks such as Twitter and WordPress, the candidates reached a considerably bigger audience than the traditional commercial TV market, and for a fraction of the price. The Obama camp especially has to take huge credit for the way it mobilised its online troops and effectively sold the vision.
For me the most exciting thing of all was the empowerment of the individual voter. In elections past, if you disagreed with something a candidate had to say you only really had the TV to shout at. This time around it’s never been easier to publish your thoughts. One site I fell in love with was ‘Hack the Debate’, which took a live video stream from the presidential debates and overlaid a real time feed from Twitter. It was compelling viewing, and exciting that anyone and everyone could take part.
Ben Dyer is director of product development at ecommerce company Actinic
Web filtering specialist
Eamonn Doyle
Bloxx
Without doubt a huge impact. Winning the young, first-time voters was key and since these people were born digital, engaging online was a given.
Eamonn Doyle is managing director of web filtering company Bloxx
Digital marketing guru
Ben Wood
TradeDoubler
The 2008 US Election was unlike any other that had gone before it. Barack Obama’s successful electoral race was a master class in online campaigning and testament to the increasingly pervasive influence of digital media in modern culture. Clearly his success is not down to the internet alone, but the cutting edge virals, social network-inspired activism and the endless blogs helped ensure he engaged with and mobilised a previously disenfranchised element of the electorate, turning what was once a purely analogue process into a truly digital race.
Exit polls show that Barack Obama secured the majority of votes made by those under 25. Through using everything from to podcasting and mobile messaging, he succeeded in engaging with America’s youth in a way that others before him had failed to even try to do. BarackObama.com, MyBarackObama.com and his other campaigning sites ticked all the boxes of how best to implement digital engagement: they were user-friendly, interactive and most important of all, ubiquitous. Would-be voters could engage with and evaluate their presidential nominee through the media of their choice - whether that was LinkedIn or MySpace, Twitter or Digg. In the age of personalised profile, voters, like customers, want to be targeted and engaged with as individuals and to be empowered to not just inform the process, but to be active within it and Obama followers were given every opportunity to do just that. Most crucial of all, Obama’s Web 2.0 tactics were not an afterthought to his campaign or a cynical exercise to pay lip service to youth audiences; digital engagement was an integral part of his campaign from the outset and he has already showed signs that it will continue to be used as a tool for change throughout his presidency. His Change.gov website, which has been set up to aid the transition process, encourages US citizens to share their visions for the future and even apply for posts within the new administration, and marks the start of a new era in politics.
Ben is managing director of digital marketing company TradeDoubler
Hosting specialist
Neil Barton
Hostway, UK
One interesting trend we have seen in recent years is the increase in the supporting role that the internet and new media have played in the political arena, be it the Parliamentary Twitter and YouTube sites or the material supporting the candidates in the US election. To some extent it’s a logical decision: putting material online allows you to target a much more tightly controlled section of the population, rather than the more ‘scattergun’ use of TV adverts and billboards. This control also allows people and companies to be much more focused about the message they deliver, which also has an effect on their persuasiveness.
However, verifying this theory by linking online activity to physical actions (in this case voting) is exceptionally difficult. There are many tools that can analyse clickthroughs, page impressions and user progress on a site from the millisecond they arrive from another site to the moment they finish checkout, but very few which accurately predict physical behaviour from online activity with any degree of accuracy.
After all, analysts would need to examine impact of factors such as a negative discussion on a bulletin board, and whether positive and negative discussion simply be added or subtracted from ‘influence’. Furthermore, how should other variables like gender, race or sexuality be included, when they are outside of the web’s influence? It’s also important to consider the effect of ‘dark matter’ – invisible effects on voters – as well as sites that may not have many readers, but which are extraordinarily influential. All in all, I do believe that the online world had a significant effect on the US elections, but untangling that effect would almost certainly take longer then the election process itself.
Neil is the director of Hostway UK
Activist
Oxblood Ruffin
Hactivismo
Joe Trippi, who’s acknowledged as the first political strategist to exploit the internet, had this to say about Obama campaign’s online success. “We were the Wright Brothers on the Dean campaign and this is Apollo 11. These guys, they’ve skipped Boeing and Mercury and Gemini in, like, three years. They’re going to land a guy safely in the White House after we just proved you could sort of, you know, glide down a sand dune in Kitty Hawk.”
This feat was masterminded by Blue State Digital, all former protégés of Joe Trippi, for a reported $1.1million. From its spectacular success at fundraising to political organisation, the Obama campaign broke new ground in winning the world’s most important election. And it will probably continue as the first networked presidency with Obama’s legislative agenda. I look forward to Mr Obama calling on his citizen network if anyone in Congress balks at passing the laws he thinks the country needs to move forward.
Oxblood Ruffin is the founder of Hacktivismo, which campaigns for free speech on the internet
Accessibility expert
Julie Howell
Fortune Cookie
This isn’t the first time that Americans have gone to the polls since the internet was invented. But it was the first election where the web played a role in the outcome.
Both candidates made energetic and creative use of the web to promote their policies. Post-election analysis will reveal whether any particular online creative had a measurable impact on the final result; however, both Obama and McCain can claim responsibility for using the web to achieve something that candidates in previous presidential elections did not.
Their close attention to the digital arena as a channel for communicating with the voting public – through their creative and energetic use of SMS, YouTube, email and blogs – undoubtedly persuaded disenfranchised people to vote in their millions, many for the first time in their lives.
This election will be remembered for a number of reasons, but let’s not forget where we were the day the web finally delivered on its promise to transform a nation.
Julie Howell is director of accessibility at Fortune Cookie, a UK-based web design agency
Internet playboy
Drew Curtis
Fark
The whole ordeal was significantly more annoying. Nothing like giving a bunch of tards a forum and a sense of entitlement that their nut-job views MUST BE HEARD – preferably in all caps.
Drew is the owner of news aggregator and edited social networking news site Fark.com
Analytics expert
Colette Wade
WebTrends
There is no doubting that online activity had a huge role to play in the US electoral race. After all, what other President Elect can say that he has more than 136,000 friends on Twitter? Recent coverage of Obama’s sad parting of company with his beloved Blackberry also points to the value the President-to-be placed on email and the internet, with some commentators likening the business phone to the ‘other half of his brain’ during the election. Unfortunately Obama will now have to endure something of an electronic detoxing, as a president’s email can be subpoenaed by Congress and courts, and may be subject to public records laws. If a president doesn’t want his email public, he shouldn’t email. So although online played a significant part in his election, with social networking site myBarackObama.com chalking up more than 1.5million accounts and volunteers using the site to organise a thousand phone-banking events in the last week of the race, it looks like, in literal terms, it will play less of a role in Barack’s Presidency.
Colette Wade is senior marketing director at web analytics specialist WebTrends
Bookmark with:
Comments
Dave Child / 07/01/2009 / 09:52 / http://www.addedbytes.com
Given the campaigning seems to start earlier and earlier every cycle, I'm just surprised the campaigning for the 2012 election is still so low key!
