Retail Politics USA
By this time next month, the USA could have a new president, and in this year's campaigning the internet is more prominent than ever.
Back In 2004, a year after the war in Iraq, John Kerry stood for the US Presidency against the incumbent George W Bush. It was the year when Kerry reminded the world he'd won three Purple Hearts in Vietnam, (a medal given out to US recruits injured in service), and we discovered Bush couldn't pronounce "nuclear".
It may surprise you to realise that this was still a year before YouTube was created. Back in 2004, we didn't have the video software or the bandwidth to support the videos which we take for granted today. Nevertheless, people were creating web-hosted movies, and one site, JibJab, created a superb political satire video about the Bush-Kerry battle using Flash to create the animation. In took a couple of minutes to load, but these days we can watch it on YouTube.
In 2008, the Barack Obama campaign really ramped up its use of the internet as a way of getting its message out. Amongst other things, it had a mailing list of 16 million email addresses, and used email and text messaging as a way of spreading its key points and mobilising support. 35% of Americans said they watched an online political video in the 2008, three times as many as four years previously, and 6% went online to make campaign contributions, again three times as many as in 2004. In a post-election survey, about a quarter of Americans said that the internet made them feel more personally involved in the 2008 election.
In 2012, both parties are using the internet extensively and this time around it is social media which is the real battleground. Although Twitter started becoming popular in 2007, this is the first US election where it is mainstream. The effective campaigning is recognising that each social media channel serves a different purpose. Twitter is being used to discuss the issues of the moment, Facebook usage appears to be more oriented to people reflecting on things that have happened during the day, and Google is used to "put a structure to the madness".
The campaign's Internet strategists are saying the goal with social media is to collect data from voters in order to personalise the campaign. They want to make the candidate not only familiar with the issues, but also to be seen as a friend who understands the problems voters face. This campaigning is aimed more directly at the end voter than the media intermediaries, and has been dubbed "retail politics".
Coincidentally, a week after the US elections, we go to the polls in England and Wales on 15th November to elect Police Commissioners, but many people are still unaware of why we are having these elections or who is standing for the posts. Apart from a belated TV campaign featuring scary images of crime which will apparently be magically solved by whoever is elected, there has been almost no attempt to engage with the public. Even if you managed to find the websites, they are devoid of any useful information but are promising to show candidate information from the 26th October.
www.homeoffice.gov.uk/police/police-crime-commissioners
www.choosemypcc.org.uk
25th October 2012
This article comes from the SKILLZONE email newsletter, published monthly since January 2008, and covering topics related to technology and the internet. All articles and artwork in the SKILLZONE newsletter are orignal content.