Use of Technology in Election Campaigns

The form in which political parties campaign has changed over time. And, there are many explanations historians provide describing the evolution of campaigns over time. In the present days, there is no doubt social media such as Facebook and Twitter has changed the game; these tools allow presidential nominees to reach far more people than ever before. It also allows the candidate to talk to people without filtration. In the last decade, the goal of the campaign focuses more on demoralizing the contestants than addressing real issues.

President Obama not only was the first African American to be elected, but was also the first presidential candidate to effectively use social media as a major campaign strategy. In many ways the election of Barack Obama mimicked that of John F. Kennedy, both having changed politics forever. For John F. Kennedy it was the television and for Obama it was the internet. Barack Obama’s strategy of using the internet as a campaigning tool was a key to his victory in the election. He used the internet to organize his supporters. He had many more friends and followers on his Facebook and Twitter than his opponent John McCain did. The social media landscape looks a lot different now. There has been an increasing number of social media tools now than there were

    In today’s modern time, social media has a huge impact on political environment. How the World Changed Social Media claims, “ Such political activity as there is on social media is usually at a national level and is conducted mainly by supporters…” (Miller 142,143). Social media presents a national level bias. During the last ten years, politics has gained much traction on these sites.  For example, campaigns for national

How presidential candidates present themselves in the media can be proven to impact election results dramatically. Political figure using social media did not start to become more common until after the 2008 election because Twitter and Facebook were just recently created, but by looking at data from the past two elections it shows that the news presidential candidates put on their social media can correlate with how people will decide to vote. After researching what topics political candidates post and how they present themselves in the media with election results it can be established that a candidate’s presence in social media can have an impact on how people might vote in an election. “By 2008 candidate websites were standard and campaigns

November 4, 2008 marked a monumental moment in United States history. American presidential elections were revolutionized because of the 2008 presidential election between democratic candidate Barack Obama and republican candidate John McCain. After eight years, President George W. Bush., Americans were waiting for, what would be the key word of this election - change. The U.S. had the opportunity to witness history with either the first African-American president or first female vice president. It was a full year of pricey campaigning, nationally broadcasted debates, and party strategies, media controversies involving candidates and their families. It also was a year where America realized how the Internet can affect an election. In June

In the past ten years the way we as a people communicate has changed greatly. No longer is it uncommon for conversations to not be face to face and now more so than ever conversations take place through text. As with any change there will be and is push back to it. The conflict over the consequences of the social media dependent society have now intensified as a result of social media playing ever greater roles in how politics is seen and even conducted. This has been a major societal question since the presidential election of 2008 and the debate has been written about, discussed, and argued by thousands of different politicians,

Many of them campaigned for Barack Obama, harnessing the power of the internet to cultivate new online communities and to disseminate the message of change that he espoused and many of the young embraced. Just before delivering his acceptance speech in Chicagos Grant Park, president-elect sent bulk email to his young-adult supporters, a fitting communiqué for this technologically advanced generation.” We just made history.” he

This campaign season, I worked for Bruce Davis. Bruce Davis was the Democratic candidate chosen in the primary to run for House of Representatives in the Thirteen District in North Carolina. This campaign season was not a traditional one in comparison to what I’ve studied of past campaign’s. Our world has changed with the creation of social media and campaign’s have changed with it. In our campaign we had to look harder to find a proper strategy for using social media to are advantage and think outside the box. Bruce Davis chose to give his intern’s and his staff free reign to come up with ideas to move our campaign into modern times. These ideas will be discussed throughout this paper. I will discuss my personal experience, which was an

More and more people are getting their news from social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Tumbler and many more, and candidates are using this to their advantage. This election is probably one of the first were candidates have actually used social media sites as their direct communication line to potential voters. Social media today had gone from gossip and family pictures to a location for political strategy. Thanks largely to trumps regular social media first declarations and its actually working particularly with the younger voters. A study released last year from the Pew Research Center that Marissa Lang cited showed that “Among 18- to 29-year-olds, nearly two-thirds said social media is the most helpful means of learning new things about politics.” (Lang, 2016). Even if the candidate isn’t the one posting the video or message in the end it will still end up on social media. For example, Trump had announced his plan to ban all Muslims from entering the united states in South Carolina not on social media however it found its way there and spread like wild fire. This sent those who were outraged to respond in disgust and those who encouraged it to share it so that their friends could see and so on and so on. Even if those who shared it did it to

Congress, 80% of our representatives use social media to engage with constituents. That has never been done before and is changing how politicians respond. We even see some votes in Congress made based on their Facebook feedback.”(The Economic) The Internet is like being there in the whole scene. Missing out information is impossible, a simply Google search, all the information is stored. When computers came out, it cost thousands, now it’s cheaper and faster. There’s tablets and phones with the opportunity to surf the web. More than half the candidates have some type of social media, either them or a fan.

Barrack Obama’s tenure as President of the United States is coming to a close and voters should understand how to gather reliable information on new candidates, such as Jeb Bush. Even though paying attention to all four major types of media platforms; digital, legacy, a candidates’ own media, and social media, creates a sound informative opinion on Republican Presidential hopeful Jeb Bush, digital media provides voters with the most holistic view. The benefits of digital media, throughout the week of September 15th through the 22nd, created an opportunity to construct a different point of view on Bush and what he stands for.

Appearances on entertainment shows, gives candidates an escape from the highly critical national press to a much more friendlier environment for them. A great example would be interviews on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show or Colbert Report. Another beneficial outlet for campaigns is social websites that were mainly used in the 2008 election and continued through 2012 elections. “For example, nearly six million people viewed the New York Time’s posting of the first Obama-Romney debate on YouTube”. (Dunaway & Graber. 2009. Pg. 316) In 2012 the Obama campaign turned to Twitter to target direct messages to voters and contributors, they also had more than sixteen million e-mail addresses. Others sources of direct social media that campaigns use are candidate-sponsored websites, campaign websites, and special interest pages for groups such as senior citizens, veterans, college students, or young

In the writing by Briggs (Young People and Political Participation: Teen Players) she notes that “social media are a critical new space for political discourse and engagement, which political institutions cannot afford to neglect” as the younger audiences use social media, and the people they follow as a guide it seemed vital that modern day politics has to infiltrate social media formats. This can be utilised by politicians and their agenda to widen the scope of their message. In the Praeger Handbook of Political Campaigning in the United States, Benoit investigates how successful an organised strategy using new media to win an election can be for political candidates. He states that “the innovative use of new media contributed to President Barack Obama's presidential campaign win in 2008” (Benoit, 2016). Obama's presidential campaign was one of the first to set the standard for political strategy online. The literature talks about the expansion of the internet and how that has provided a suitable platform for political agendas to grow exponentially. With the focus of the research project highlighting the specific use of social media it is important to reflect on the initial stages of online political campaigning, and to understand how Trump has cultivated this style of political

Referred to as the “Facebook election” the 2008 US presidential election, and the lesser-known 2007 election campaign of former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, dubbed 'Kevin 07 ', set a precedent as to how one could use the dynamic and ever-growing platform of social media to their electoral advantage. It is pertinent to note that Chris Hughes, one of the co-founders of Facebook, was among Barack Obama 's key strategists. Though quite older than the average Facebook user, Obama captured the youth vote, having around 2 million supporters on Facebook, with his Republican rival John

The effects of mass media and social media have changed the way people have experienced presidential campaigns in many ways. With the development of new technologies through the last hundred years many different ways of experiencing the campaigns have taken place. Newspapers, radio, television, internet and social media websites have changed the ways we all have experienced elections.