Technology: How has it affected the 2008 Election

February 14, 2008 · Filed Under Recent News 

For the first time ever, all of the major candidates have teams in their respective camps who’s sole job is to reach voters through the internet and other emerging technologies. 

The vital key for any major  is name and face recognition.  That’s why whenever election time rolled around you ended up driving or walking by countless signs that said “Vote for [Insert Name Here}!!!” in big bright letters, often accompanied by a picture of the candidate. 

The theory being even if you know nothing about that candidate or where he stands on the issues, if you recognize his name and his face, but his opponent is a stranger to  you, you are more likely to give your vote to the recognized candidate. 

Politics is the ultimate people person job.  To get the job you have to make a large amount of people in the county, state, or country think favorably of you.  That means making personal contact with them. Or at least looking like you’re trying to. 

During the past century developments in mass communication technology had a direct impact on the American political process in many ways.  The advent of radio and television meant that public figures could suddenly have audiences in the millions, not just the thousands.  This drastically changed the manner in which candidates ran for office.  Instead of variety of ‘whistle stops’ along a campaign trail where people had to be interested enough to travel to where the candidate was speaking, now they could hear and see the candidate talking about his views right in the comfort of their own home. 

Political handlers and power brokers immediately seized on the advantage that TV and Radio could give them in presenting their candidates to the public.  Especially live television, seeing and hearing the person in real-time, giving statements and answering questions, was far better than meeting with mass crowds and attempting to shake a few hands and pat a few backs.  Meeting a candidate in person was often a chore, involving travel, and even then most people could only directly see the candidate for a few moments.  With TV and Radio, now they could see the candidate up close, and hear him or her talk at length.  This exponitially increased both name and face recognition with potential voters.

As the new century has dawned, technological innovation has continued at a rapid rate.  In just the last 8 years the internet has come to play a key role in elections in this country.  Just in the area of political discourse, the internet has made great contributions; organizations such as MoveOn.org and RealClearPolitics.com have provided a forum for people to discuss their ideas and strategies.  Political sites such as The Daily Kos and Free Republic can get over a million visits from readers in a day, many of whom engage in debate and the sharing of ideas. 

It used to be that town hall style meetings would have to be held to get together like-minded citizens to organize a political effort.  Today all you need is a website and an e-mail address and you can organize an internet ‘town hall’ meeting that spans the country in the thousands, if not the millions. 

In this year’s Presidential Elections, each candidate is well aware of the impact successfully conveying their ideas and personality across mass media is going to affect their chances of getting elected.  Now they not only have to craft messages for the TV and the Radio; they also must construct ads and make appearances for interviews  on websites that appear only on-line. 

The speed of information plays such a dramatic factor in the present day elections that each and every statement made by a candidate must be carefully weighed.  Within a matter of minutes a picture or soundbite from even the smallest town, college or remote location can be picked up and seen by millions online.  Every debate and conversation analyzed by thousands of bloggers, and every nuanced guesture critiqued by the masses.

Many would say that this truly does bring the elections towards a truer form of democracy - where the ’every-man’ gets a chance to weigh in and make a fact based decision on each candidate (if they desire to do so).   

Others believe that the parity seen in recent elections (2000-2004) is a result of the mass of information which is readily available and will continue to be the trend.  Perhaps in past years whistle-stops, name recognition and/or a debate or two were enough to insure a landslide.  Now millions of Americans watch every move and listen to every word.  No matter the policitcal stances taken the pure amount of communicatino and information available may be bound to create a close election result.

Whoever wins in the elections this year, you can be sure they will give lots of credit for their victory to those campaign workers who dealt with internet media presentations and advertisements, their PR management team who handled the constant barrage of critisicm from the bloggers and their writers for keeping each and every campaing stump clear from danger.

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2 Responses to “Technology: How has it affected the 2008 Election”

  1. Technology in 2008 | PennyWise PCs on February 17th, 2008 9:33 pm

    [...] TechSlants most recent articles talks about politics. I know, ‘ho-hum, another politics blog’, but this isn’t just a post reviewing the candidates, or pimping Ron Paul, its a look at how technology has effected the race. From fundraising to Youtube, the 2008 presidential election has been effected by the internet in a way never seen before. Barack Obama has raised over 100,000,000 (100 million) through his website, Ron Paul became the top fundraiser for the GOP in the 4th quarter of 2007 through his site despite having only a small amount of the electorate, the ‘macaca’ speech by the senator from Virginia, posted on YouTube, sunk his presidential ambitions. Those are only a few of the most obvious examples, every candidate has been in a race to harness the web to spread their message and raise money. See it here: Politics and Technology [...]

  2. don pharrs on November 5th, 2008 3:53 pm

    Barack Obama won the first black president yeh we in here 08

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