03 February 2010

Campaigning Online

 

Bloggers report from the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado.

Bloggers report from the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado.

This article is excerpted from the book American Citizenship, published by the Bureau of International Information Programs. View the entire book (PDF, 4.57MB).

As the Internet expands, online media claim a larger role in the world of political campaigns. First used as a new tool to sign up volunteers and solicit campaign contributions, the Internet became an integral communications tool between candidates for office and American voters in the 2000s.

According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 55 percent of the adult U.S. population went online to participate in or to get news and information about the 2008 presidential election campaign. The study, The Internet’s Role in Campaign 2008, released in April 2009, also found that voters were using the Internet’s social-networking and interactive capabilities to follow political events in new ways. The survey showed that one in three Internet users forwarded political content to friends or family; one in five used a blog or social-networking site to express their own thoughts on the campaign.

On social-networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, many U.S. presidential candidates took up residence for the 2008 race. Tom Anderson, a founder of MySpace, says that the site reaches people who might not follow political news through traditional media. “A MySpace profile could excite their interest in ways they are used to,” he says. “In the same way they learn about their friends, they could learn about a candidate.”

The Pew study also found that 45 percent of Internet users went online to watch a video relating to the political campaigns in 2008. That finding follows from the fact that YouTube, the video-sharing Web site, made history in presidential political campaigns, introducing a whole new mechanism for voters to become involved in the race. YouTube joined with CNN to conduct televised debates among candidates for their respective party’s nomination in 2008. The traditional format allows a panel of journalists to question the candidates, and, occasionally, an audience in a television studio might have the opportunity to pose questions to candidates. In 2008, anyone with an Internet connection and a video cam had a chance at the politicians. Individual voters lobbed questions at the candidates in videos uploaded to YouTube. The candidates assembled for a televised event in one location to respond to the video questions. The events, held separately for Democratic and Republican candidates, were broadcast on CNN.