The First Campaign
Having already read portions of The First Campaign last fall, it was interesting to see how much the election of 2008 had already changed due to technology. One of the sentences that really struck me was an opening sentence about our world and how it has become a world “where not even the glaciers move at a glacial pace.” It seems to me that new media has enhanced our living standard and raised expectations. Whether these two ideas go together is another question.
Predictions about youtube ads, online fund-raising, and social networking have all started to become a way of life for the campaign 2008. The candidates even have their own pages on youtube where you can view all of their ads and messages.
Here are some of the latest TV Ads from each candidate:
The campaigns have even figured out how to get their material aired. The know that television stations have the capability to download video via ftp as well as other large .mov files on the web. The campaigns utilize this idea by making their material easily airable and not costly.
I have to wonder though if The First Campaign is accurate, where will be on the next campaign. It seems to me like any sort of revolution man kind has experienced we are going to find a appropriate “workflow” usage for the internet. Right now, we are still in the stage as Zephyr Teachout describes as the inability to “mobilize the base.” As the Dean campaign ran into in 2004, the internet is full of endless possibilities. Know one quite knows what is going to stick.
While the 2008 election has much improved on this philosophy, it seems as though we have a long way to go. Campaign’s usage of the internet reminds me of those sticky hands you would get as a kid, they were rubber and when you flung it at the wall sometimes it would stick, other times it would bounce right off. Often the more you used it and the more times you tried flinging it against the wall it would build staying power and stick.
Yes, it is interesting that in this election Senator Barack Obama has been able to utilize online fund-raising, and it is interesting that candidates have announced their election via video online, but what I think is going to be the most interesting thing of all is how once one of these two candidates gets in that White House how they use the internet and how the public responds to that usage. You never know what might stick.
