The Internet's Effect on 2008 Presidential Campaigns

This past weekend was a big weekend for announcing presidential campaigns for the 2008 elections. I spent some time watching announcement videos from various candidates from both a political and technical standpoint. This point isn't meant to be political, but to take a look at how candidates are using technology to spread their campaign message.

Announcing via online video has suddenly become the way to kick things off. It's a slick strategy that allows candidates to deliver their message without the immediate follow-up questions one would receive at a press conference. It allow allows for tight scripting and editing, so the message should be exactly what they hope to get across compared to the uncertainty of a live announcement.

YouTube seems to be the most popular venue to date for publishing announcement videos, with Brightcove not far behind. Brightcove offers better video quality than YouTube today, so that may be the reason some candidates went that route, but YouTube has a much larger audience on their site, so ignoring YouTube entirely could be a mistake.

Both services allow for video sharing through embeds, making it easy for supporters or reporters to share the videos in their entirety on their own web sites. Sen. Hillary Clinton has been an exception to the rule by not publishing her announcement video with a video sharing platform. It looks like ten of her supporters have done so on her behalf, but that's not the same as having your own channel on a site like YouTube.

When it comes to podcasting, Barack Obama seems to be in the driver's seat. Here is a look at the top-10 New and Politics podcasts on iTunes today:

Obama's podcast ranks higher than the BCC, NY Times, and NPR and is the only podcast from a politician in the top-100.

The 2006 election showed the power of online video's influence on elections, by arguably costing George Allen the election due comments he made at a rally that ended up on YouTube, and from there were reported on and played over and over again by every major news outlet. 2008 could be the year that the web really helps candidates as campaigns begin to better understand the power of this medium. And it will surely lead to more gotcha incidents caught on tape by roving videographers from opposing campaigns.

How do you think online tools like video and podcasting will change future political campaigns?

2008 will show that the candidates can bypass the mainstream media and go directly to the Internet and YouTube for almost everything.

Will a large enough percentage of voters go to YouTube and other online sources for campaign information to sway the election in favor of candidate A over candidate B? Will reporters in the mainstream press amplify stories manufactured by candidates on their campaign sites or YouTube? I think one of both of those things needs to happen for online video to really change things today.

Here is a very interesting study of how each candidate is reaching out on the Internet and their popularity. The graphs are really cool.

I am really sceptical towards the internet and its role in today’s and future campaigns. It’s a new form of demagogy, it has become easy to spread untruths about a candidate on the net, and I guess it’s gonna be even worse in the future. The government should do something about it.

John Hunt, while that's true, doesn't it also provide better access to the facts since people can easily look up the story behind the story? Factcheck.org is a good starting point.

Also, bloggers tend to jump all over inaccurate comments by candidates both all parties.

Comments

1. Posted by: Donald Braden on January 21, 2007 10:33 PM:

I agree technology will play a significant role in this presidential election season. I fact I think it has shaped attitudes around a variety of topics and candidates more than we think.

Ever find it odd how all of the ocnservatives can run down the same grievances against liberals no matter how politically engaged that conservative is. It is in part dur to the conservative email chain propaganda machine.

Many people discredit these bogus tactics, but how is it that every one of them can use the same examples when you know they don't listen to talk radio or watch the Fox News Network. It is a powerful medium that has been in play for quite some time.

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