Use of New Media in Political Campaigning

ng Introduction of New Media and Its Effects on semipolitical candidacy Ammara Mahmood 997652455 POLD51H3 Abstract In the rilling of all United States, Canada and Britain for the elections 2008/2010/2011, the role of unseasoned media was vital. It started bump off with Obamas campaign in 2008 and is still carried on in elections after that. This composing looks at the wasting disease of young media by parties in the ternionsome countries and how their accustom of media differed in the dated elections. For this, the paper explores three key concepts of un apply media that excite affected politics 1- What was the troupes last or strategy? How did the company execute its goal or strategy? 3- In what commission was for each one partys strategy a conquest or failure? With the commit of quantitative and qualitative data, the hypotheses shows that new medias introduction in governmental marketing has impacted and evolved the campaigning strategies since 2008. It shows ne w media has been a major component of campaign strategies for educating voters, entropyrming citizens nigh electorates, partys ideals and resolutions and how the use of mass media though still present has declined over delinquent to the arrival of new media.The findings adumbrate that new media has been a major source of campaign financing in US man in Canada, it has been a way of educating voters. Contrary, in Britain, it has more been use as a side whoreson where mass media is still a major component of campaigning. Introduction of New Media and Its Effects on Political Campaigning Living in new digital reality means that citizens must gestate the changes it will bring to their culture and society. While the mass media provided throng with a platform to raise their piece and be heard, the new media has given people a chance to act.The need of humans to constantly be conversed, heard, and feel valuable is what the new media provides. These qualities of new media has enabl ed it to move from the basic realm of our daily lives to other big smells of our lives of which one is, the arena of politics. With the introduction of the new media and its varying forms, politics and the idea of interaction with leaders and parties has revolutionized. This paper argues that the use of new media has changed the notion of politics, with the leaders and parties now bounded to learn new ways to interact and stay connected if they are to leave a mark and succeed.This will be shown through with(predicate) the differing use of new media in relation to partys goals and strategies, their execution and success or failure in United States of America (USA), Britain (UK) and Canada for the elections of 2008/2010/2011. New Strategies With the dramatic changes in telecommunication technology, the way people interact and the way politics functions have been transformed. There have been s ever soal new media strategies to engage voters and money in the three countries. Firstly, with the expansion of broadband technology, and the introduction of smart phones, the adult male of politics has fetch more interactive.New media has provided people with a cheaper method to constantly interact with their leaders, parties and be certified rough them without having to physically travel to attend vies or governmental rallies. Also, this has allowed for web-accessible information to the public where there is no more need for pamphlets, brochures or posters to be accessed and dropped off at peoples houses. People can now sit in the comfort of their homes and get under ones skin all the information they need about their panoramas, and parties.The paper, amend in an Age of Networked campaigns mentions, Broadband has acted as a force multiplier in the creation of a more distri plainlyed computing environment (Corrado, Malbin, Mann & Ornstein, 2010). Secondly, the new media has allowed for contrastive types of political organizations and networked communities whe re people can mobilize and act together just about a certain sheer or political point of view through use of affable media sites uniform Twitter and Facebook. The candidate campaigns are now more engaged with either the make out of donations creation tracked or the number of visitors to the sites being noted, digital communication makes t easier to identify and manage supporters. It in any case allows parties to expand their databases for use in subsequent elections. Thirdly, new media has allowed for innovation and an increase in donations for campaign financing. An example of this is the MyBO site for Barrack Obama which prepare a new standard to recruit and engage financial supporters. Individuals who made a contribution were on a weak basis solicited by email and often were asked to make an additional contribution that would be matched by another donor.Contributors could polarity up for a recurring gift program that allowed them to make donations of as little as $25 on regular basis by charging the amount to a credit card. This emphasis on elegant donors instead of a few large donors proven very successful for Obamas campaign and this was lone(prenominal) possible due to his wise use of new media techniques. New Media is a 21st Century catchall end point used to define all that is related to the internet and the interplay between technology, images and sound (Socha & Eber-Schmid, 2012). The elections before 2008/2010/2011 were untouched by new media.It was with Facebooks launch in 2004, YouTube in 2005 and Twitter in 2006 that ever since, new media became a vital component of politics. USA election 2008 The 2008 US chairpersonial election were the start of what was to come in politics. The use of new media and the significance it was about to have in the politics, started in the year 2008 with Obama and McCain campaigning against each other. These elections were the first one where political candidates possessed a huge media presence then any candidates ever in the political history.Both the candidates of the Republicans and the Democrats, McCain and Obama had not only websites that kept people aware of their campaigns but they were also most present on almost all of the well-disposed networking platforms. New Media was used as a new, cheap, basic (a golden word for campaigns of any kind) way for candidates to shore up support, and McCain and Obama have jumped in with gusto both(prenominal) candidates were on Facebook (McCain has 214,482 supporters listed, Obama 1,380,827), and both had MySpace pages (McCain has 64,644 friends, Obama 457,188) both were also on LinkedIn, Digg, Twitter, Flickr, and Eventful (McCracken, 2008).The individual websites for both the candidates were MyBarackObama. com and McCainSpace (see Appendix A for snapshots of websites). The registration process were similar for both sites with each asking you to explain the reasons of your choice and general info like name, date of birth etc and once you entered the site, you could perform activities like writing blog posts, sharing videos, position or tweets to engage and remain informed. Obamas site attracted a lot more people due to its catchy and unique outlook then that of McCain.The site also had a financial aspect to it where people could make donations online allowing people to feel valuable and participatory even if the donation was a small amount. McCainSpacelike his entire websitehad a clunky, blase feel to it. MyBarackObama. com, though scarcely more in others resting or socialise than McCainSpace, did at least feel more comfortable in its own skin the style and report was cohesive, easy to navigate, and it seamlessly fit into Obamas larger site (McCracken, 2008).The Republican as their general top down, vertical approach in elections seemed to be resistant in using the new media because they were reluctant to move of the handed-down message conveying system giving the power of message into the hands of ri ght(prenominal)rs. Contrary, Democrats were more flexible in the approach handing control to people outside of formal party members and representatives. This allowed them to make use of new media tools by not obsessing with message control. For example, The first was the Obama Girl video titled I Got a Crush On Obama. The three-minute video, made by independent filmmakers unassociated with the campaign, featured a seductive young woman singing about her crush on Senator Obama. The second, also unassociated with the campaign, was a video montage of Barrack Obama edited to appear as if the candidate were performing with musician Will. i. am. Titled Yes We Can, that video became a rallying cry for the Obama campaign. Those videos were watched 11. 6 and 13 million times respectively (Metzgar & Maruggi, 2009).Overall, Obama clearly due to his bold and innovative strategies was more successful in campaigning using the new media then McCain was which might have played a role in him being e lected as President as well. Britain election 2010 Compared to USA, Britain has been more subtle in their use of the new media. The 2010 elections marked the first time that new media was introduced and used in Britains politics. From the televised debates to the online involvement through social media sites, the 2010 elections were a revolutionary change in the countrys politics. The most impact that new media had in the years elections were behind the scenes.The parties used it to mobilize and organize supporters and campaigners to increase their database and garner straight support. Parties used email to connect with potential voters on a regular basis. The strategies used by parties vary though. For the Lib Democrats it seems to have been a largely internal and campaigner-focused affair but the orthodoxs were much more prolific with regular (often more than daily) emails arriving in the inboxes of members and supporters from David Cameron, George Osborne, Eric Pickles and Wil liam Hague(Williamson, 2010).Compared to these two, Labour partys strategy was somewhere in between with them being public oriented having face to face contact then Liberal Democrats but not being as professional and subtle as the Conservatives. One Labour insider described a mass email from Lord Mandelson as utterly boring and said they could not read beyond the first dissever (Williamson, 2010). As successful as email service proved during elections, what was shocking was the failure of partys websites to engage voters. While the main party websites did not gain much support, spoof websites for the Conservatives like mydavidcameron. com proved successful.This was set up by an individual as a response to the airbrushed images of the Tory party leader visual aspect on billboards around the country. The website allowed anyone to download templates, create their own spoof Conservative election posters and then transfer them (Williamson, 2010). The Liberal Democrats launched their s ite labservative. com and the Labour party also created a website with web content including a viral of YouTube videos. The Conservatives went ahead of the two parties with anyone entering key words or phrases into Google being given a impinging to their website at the top of the page and usually a YouTube video to accompany it.The most important aspect of the 2010 elections was the introduction of American like Presidential debates that the Britain saw for the first time. The debates were a huge success with around 9. 4 million people (Bamieh, 2010) tuning in to watch the debate. The new media then acted as a side tool with people tweeting and posting statuses. Tweetminster reported 184,396 tweets relating to the first debate, averaging over 29 tweets per second (and peaking during the debate at more than 41 tweets per second) (Bamieh, 2010). ConservativesFacebook 108,000+ Fans Twitter 36,000+ Followers Youtube 2,970,000+ Views Liberal Democrats Facebook 90,000+ Fans Twitter 22,50 0+ Followers Youtube 135,000+ Views Labour companionship Facebook 59,000+ Fans Twitter 19,000+ Followers Youtube 1,684,000+ Views (Bamieh, 2010) The table (see Appendix B for data on blog posts) and the stats clearly suggest that the Conservative party took the lead on the social media front whether it was Twitter, emails, Facebook, blog posts or YouTube which played a role in their victory in elections. Canada election 2011Following on the steps of the 2008 elections in their neighbor country, Canadian parties and politicians made vital use of new media in the countrys elections in 2011. In Canada, the social media outlets have been utilized by parties to generate dialogues, channel electorates attention, educate voters, instigate online activity on portals, and connect with supporters. The Liberal partys approach in the elections was to go all out and grotesque and make use of every possible social outlet to engage voters and mark their presence.The Liberals linked Ignatieff s F acebook page with discussion groups and also offered readers the chance to ask questions, which few seemed interested in doing (Taras & Waddell). In contrast, the Conservative Party, which greatly increased its use of digital media from 2008, used a funneling strategy focusing on channeling the electorates attention and online activity to the partys online portal, Tory Nation also using its portal as its original means of connecting with supporters (Natalie, 2008).The NDP used new media to educate its voters to increase its vote share while constantly emailing supporters. It also made use of Smartphone applications wisely by introducing an iPhone application named Jack Layton which informed supporters about upcoming political events while also linking photos and videos of their leaders tours regularly. Similarly, the Green Party also introduced an application and tried to educate its supporters about the party.Unlike the other more recognizable parties, the Green Party was faced wi th the task of establishing itself as a legitimate alternative party and political force in Canadian politics and so its colossal use of digital media usage stemmed from its need to build awareness and to communicate its message outside mass media (Natalie, 2008). While, all the parties made use of Twitter vastly, the usage of Facebook and YouTube was surprisingly limited in their strategy. well-nigh of the candidates including Stephen Harper and Ignatieff jumped and made use of the tweeting bandwagon.Facebook didnt attract nearly the same amount of media attention as Twitter, perhaps because parties and candidates used it mostly like any other one-way means of communication. Candidate and party Facebook sites were used primarily to distribute messages to voters but generated almost no debate and interaction with them about policies (Taras & Waddell). The partys strategies in the 2011 elections in use of new media were not as bold and widely used to that of USA.The parties used th e new media as a side tool with all the parties doing a little but none of them doing enough to utilize the new medias strengths fully. Conclusions In the three countries, the use of new media general has allowed to facilitate a sense of community and a stronger connection between individuals and candidates. However, the extent and degree to which the parties in each country have utilized new media varies. While the USA has been the predominant leader due to its brave and innovative use of new media, Canada and Britain have been slowly accepting and dealing with this phenomenon.Also, in the three countries, new media strategies are being used as old strategies in new and advanced forms. Email, websites and social media all played important roles but they were not game changers, simply additional tools that could be successfully deployed alongside other, more traditional methods (Williamson, 2010). Earlier, mass media played a similar role of interaction and reservation in politics . Now, new media allows for a greater extent of individual involvement and engagement through use of social media sites, online networking communities etc in the arena of politics.This can also be portrayed from the idea that other factors in politics such as charisma, race, and identification still matter and have in fact become more important after the innovations and enhancements to media. For example, in the election of 2008, it was not just the smart use of new media that allowed for Obamas success. Rather, it was a combination of his charismatic personality, his appearance as the first to be black President and his use of new media that led to his commendable success that year. In conclusion, new media is vital to the changing world of politics today.It has transformed how we interact and stay informed about parties and their leaders. The new media has both its pros and cons and is widely used in America, Britain, and Canada. Thus, we all must accept the new media and incorpor ate it in our lives to better stay informed and connected. References Bamieh, M. (2010). British general election 2010 learn social media by example. Retrieved from http//blog. thoughtpick. com/2010/05/british-general-election-2010-learn-social-media-by-example. html Campaign Finance Institute. 2010. Reform in an Age of Networked Campaigns. 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Retrieved from http//www. aupress. ca/books/120205/ebook/04_Taras_Waddell_2012-How_Canadians_Communicate_IV. pdf Williamson, A. (2010). 2010 The internet election that wasnt. Political Insight, Retrieved from http//www. politicalinsightmagazine. com/? p=397 Appendix A (McCracken, 2008) Appendix B (Bamieh, 2010)