As the 2008 Presidential Campaign season is fully in swing, Americans are bound to see unprecedented shifts in the ways they are able to access information on particular candidates. The emergence of new digital media technologies and their accessibility to the public as well as the proliferation of the Internet has given way to what Henry Jenkins refers to as Convergence Culture; a society offering unique and diverse news suiting our particular needs available at our fingertips.
The 2004 Presidential Campaign was a time of experimentation in which political candidates utilized new media to their advantage. “Consider, for example, John Kerry’s announcement of his running mate. Kerry made the announcement first via e-mail to supporters who had registered through his Web site; the Kerry campaign used the announcement to expand its list of potential supporters for electronic mailings in the fall, and they used the buzz around the e-mail announcement to increase viewership of the televised announcement” (Jenkins 217).
Congress approved the Telecommunications Act in 1996 easing laws placed by the Federal Communications Commission in the early days of radio and television prohibiting and regulating cross-media ownership and control. The result was a less informed public. When it came to the political landscape, the trend was “an alienation of Americans from everything Washington…and the feeling of large numbers of Americans that they are disrespected by political and media elites” (TheHill.com).
In just twenty years, news coverage of political candidates in a typical broadcast has dropped from 43 seconds in 1968 to just 9 seconds in 1988. Mainstream media outlets present their audience with biased content that is corporate controlled often with an economic interest in mind. As the country is at war in Iraq, the major networks are careful not to cover controversial issues that threaten losing their viewers. For example, prior to the 2004 election, ABC barred affiliates from airing a feature on “Nightline” that it felt “focused attention solely on people who have died in the war in order to push public opinion toward the United States getting out of Iraq” (The Free Expression Policy Project) and risked alienating sectors of their audience.
Dissatisfied with the “corporately controlled content” they are receiving from the major networks, more and more people are turning to other forms of media for access to news and information on political campaigns. Statistics reveal that 39% of people watched nightly news broadcasts for information on political campaigns in 2000 compared to only 23% of respondents in 2004.
The Internet offers users access to an endless array of diverse media content. Bloggers and citizen journalists provide like-minded readers with news and viewpoints often underrepresented by mainstream media. Through the Internet, viewers access news and information through a diverse range of outlets including the BBC, which has a long history of presenting unbiased content as well as other “indie media” outlets including Free Speech TV and “Democracy Now!” (The Free Expression Policy Project).
The Internet also provides users with the opportunity to participate in political commentary. As Jenkins discusses in “Photoshop for Democracy”, parodies surrounding political candidates express widespread opinions on the Web . For example, About.com offers a gallery of the 100 most popular political cartoons. Websites such as YouTube.com allow users to upload video content, expressing their personal opinions on political candidates, therefore actively participating in media production and political news.
As more and more voters, particularly of the younger generation, have turned to the Internet, political candidates are faced with the new challenge of engaging this younger demographic. In order to succeed in a digital culture, political candidates will need to utilize new media to their advantage as a strategy in gaining voter support.
Consider Senator Barack Obama’s current popularity with the younger generation. According to the Spartan Internet Political Performance (SIPP) Index, “measuring the support and how well each candidate is connecting with individuals across the Internet”, Obama received a 37% rating in comparison with his lead Democratic opponent, Senator Hillary Clinton, receiving only a 20% rating.
Obama is employing grassroots political strategies such as these. The senator has created a profile for his campaign on the popular college website, Facebook.com, and has gained enormous support. Obama currently has over 700,000 supporters on the site.
I believe that new media and digital technologies will play an increasingly more important role within political campaigns. Evidence has revealed that communicating with voters via the Web is successful in gaining voter support. How capable these candidates are at utilizing these technologies to their advantage may not determine who wins the 2008 Presidential Election this upcoming November, but will most certainly be a factor and will continue to play an even more crucial role in the future.
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