I have decided to address Barack Obama's presidential campaign in relation to social networking. Looking back at past elections for the role of president, I had never seen such involvement from the younger generation. I considered that this could have been due to my age during the last election, but further research on the matter has convinced me that our current, technologically-inclined youth were increasingly determined to spread their political beliefs via social networks.
Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and Twitter flooded with strong-minded comments, controversial arguments, and "Test Your Obama Knowledge" quizzes. Online pins and bumper-stickers were pasted to profiles proclaiming their devotion to their candidate. Technology and government leagued and the online revolution began. I have included an article by U.S. News called "Barack Obama and the Facebook Election" that digs deeper into this view of the technological campaign.
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What about older Americans? Aren't we using the internet more, too?
ReplyDeleteWhat a great point! I chose to focus on the younger demographic simply because they were the target audience during his campaign. The older Americans were no doubt also effected by the election, but a majority of these political tactics were directed towards the youth. These are evident in his appearances at youth functions with MTV, presence in hip-hop hits such as "My President's Black and My Lambo is Blue" by rapper Lil' Wayne, and the integration of social networks and politics whose highest number of users are either young 13-17 year-olds or college students to young adults who are 18-34 year-olds (via www.quantcast.com).
ReplyDeleteBut the Internet is definately prominent among the older demographic, they were simply not the focus of Obama's attention. I personally think that McCain was more aggressive to the older Americans and independants. He seemed to work harder to appeal to that particular demographic and gain their trust.