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Comparison Of Youtube And TV Campaigns

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Another reason Obama’s YouTube ads were highly successful is because it demonstrated to the people the power they held, increasing individual and collective agency. The Youtube ads made the public feel empowered since they were more personal and created opportunities for individual involvement. For instance, Obama’s most famous ad released on YouTube called “The Choice” opens with the line “Over the next four months you have a choice to make.” . Through this specific ad, Obama is calling each individual to make “ a choice” and releasing it through YouTube makes all the more personal. The person sitting behind a computer screen is not watching this ad as they wait for their favorite tv show to start but rather chose to click on a link and watch it for themselves. Watching a YouTube ad requires interest and action while watching …show more content…

The rhetoric of the Youtube ads is also quite different than those released on television. On YouTube, the Obama campaign focused primarily on their candidates’ agenda and policies. About 73 percent of the ads released on YouTube consisted of Obama talking about how he could make the country a better place by cutting taxes and giving the middle class jobs, bringing troops back from overseas and so forth (Ridout, 2014). Television ads on the other hand, consisted mainly of attack ads focused on Romney and the Republican party's failure in economic, social and foreign policies. The stark difference in tone between YouTube and TV ads is consistent with Greg Smith’s theory that even though is the past few election cycles there has been a higher amount of negative advertising, the shift to more informative ads seen on YouTube and other social media platforms goes to prove that the audience is more likely to respond positively to ads that shed light of the issues rather than

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