Huntsman joins the race.

As the latest Republican to jump into the presidential race, Jon Huntsman is working to make a name for himself.  And who is Jon Huntsman?  Well apparently he is different.  When logging on to his website, after watching a clip from his announcement speech in Liberty Park (a view similar to that of Ronald Reagan’s announcement speech in 1980), you are taken to the “HTV” (after looking at it, I think this means Huntsman TV) section of his website and shown the first of a series of clips on this page.

            This first clip shows a person riding through fields on a dirt bike.  This is Jon Huntsman.  We learn he is a family man, a rock-and-roller, and a lover of food-trucks.  This five minute video is set to slow-paced music with a slow-paced narrator sticking to a four-count throughout this video (and the next two).  He goes on and on about how Huntsman and his wife talk everyday, detailing how they use Skype, and re-emphasizing that yes, everyday they talk.  The video shows Huntsman being active and explains his passion for different things, but the video itself, with the music and the slow narrator, exuded anything but excitement.  In fact, I found it quite boring.  I appreciate that he wants to prove himself as a “different” type of Republican, one without the drama.  But a lack of drama does not need to mean a lack of energy. 

            The rest of his site is sleek looking, with a timeline of his life, his daily blog, a press section and opportunities to volunteer and donate.  Though it is sleek, I feel it lacks the same key ingredient that the video lacks- excitement.  It is very mellow seeming.  There is no section for his stances on the issues.  Again, it is one thing to want to avoid drama, but to be a presidential candidate, you need to be able to talk about the controversial topics and this means the issues.

            Now as I said, I appreciate Huntsman’s wanting to play a different type of politics.  I agree that the rhetoric in many these campaigns, and in other aspects of politics, has gotten out of control and off topic.  But there is a middle ground, where the rhetoric is not based on hate to bring people together, but on hope- and not a boring hope that Huntsman shows, but an inspirational hope- and the man who did this, was non-other than the President, and I have a feeling he will do it again.

Millennial Makeover

Morley Winograd and Michael Hais discuss the cyclical pattern of generations and their affects on the political system in their compelling, insightful, and thought-provoking book, Millenial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube & the Future of American Politics.  The book begins by discussing the historical basis for this cyclical theory, breaking American history into five sections, each about 30-40 years long.  These sections, or eras, represent time-frames where one political party dominated the presidential elections (from 1828-1956 the Democrats won 75 percent of the elections; from 1860-1892, Republicans won 78 percent of the elections, and so forth).

Not only do the authors break up history in this way, but also by generation.  Winograd and Hais identify four ‘types’ of generations, which also seem to have cyclical roots.  The first of these is the “idealist,” who represent generations like the Baby Boomers.  The second is the “reactive” generation, such as Generation X, and tend to be entrepreneurial.  The third is the “civic” generation, which had been the GI Generation, but is now the millennial generation and are “oriented to societal challenges, problem solving, and institution building marks their adult lives”.  The final generation noted is the “adaptive” generation, who had been the Silent Generation from the mid-1920s to mid-1940s, and today represents those born after 2003.

Other elements tend to correlate with these cycles as well, which also have an effect on the political climate.  These elements include population size and growth, and the technologies, specifically innovative communications technology which emerges.

According to the book, we are on a cusp of one of these cyclical changes.  The cycle which (may have) just ended, ran from 1968- 2004.  During this time, Republicans won 70 percent of the presidential elections.  As we all know, in 2008, Dems took the White House back.  A major player in doing this, was the millennial generation and the online technology used and the ballots.  The authors note the important role the growing Hispanic and Asian populations will have on the elections.

If this theory is correct, and Democrats continue to highlight and maximize the use of technology, millennials continue to support democrats, and Hispanics, who have already shown to vote mostly Democratic, continue to do so, this cycle might switch from red to blue, but as always, anything can happen in politics.

  

The non-partisan internet

In The Argument: Inside the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics, Matt Bai begins by describing the bleak situation which was the 2004 presidential election.  Bai explains how this was the year for Democrats to take back the White House, how everyone had done everything right (except for the Kerry campaign) and how disheartening it was to liberals across the country when Ohio turned red.  As a Democrat reading this, I got a little depressed- yes the writing was fun, interesting and engaging, but the content, at least in the beginning made it seem like my party was on downward spiral which started years ago. 

So, what could we Dems do?

Well, Bai starts to explain how the Democratic Party was able to reunite.  Bai gives credit to the internet, noting sites such as MoveOn.org, and blogs such as the Daily Kos as tools which were able to bring Democrats of the baby-boom generation together in order to organize and fight for progressive positions.

The book, however, was published prior to the 2008 election, and therefore, obviously, prior to the 2010 mid-term elections.  As we know from looking back over these elections, in 2008, it is true, the Democrats won with a leg up from the use of the internet (and with a major leg-up from a very unpopular Republican President, and arguably an even less popular, or at least, less qualified vice presidential nominee).  But now that 2008 is over, Republicans are at least starting to catch on to all of this online business.

I think Bai made a good point when explaining the phenomenon which was Mark Warner, in stating that “Warner had miscalculated in seeing the Internet as merely another technology in which to invest… the Web wasn’t simply a new tool for old politics; the blogs represented their own distinct political culture.  They were, in fact, the voices of the new public square….not a place where townspeople came to carefully consider what their leaders had to say, but where the mob gathered to make its demands and mete out its own kind of justice.”

For both parties, it is not enough to simply use the internet in a campaign as Bai notes.  It is a tool with people behind it, and therefore it is ever evolving.  The political discussions, as Bai points out, are not thoughtful reflections about policy.  Now, with the ability to make a response or post things without much though, people do just that.  The consequence for politicians is that they need to keep up, but they need to keep up in a smart fashion.  Obama was able to do that 2008, but the internet is not a purely progressive tool- conservatives can, will, and are using it too, and are figuring out how to use it well.  The internet is sure to play a major role in the elections coming up, but only time will tell if the Democratic Party will be able to hold on to the online grassroots movement to help keep the White House blue.

Mobilizing Generation 2.0

As anyone even remotely in touch with current technology knows, the internet is a dominant tool which, if used effectively, can reach millions of individuals with the click of a button. Again, as most know, young people in particular, who have largely grown up with this technology, rely on the internet's services for a good portion of what they do from staying in touch with friends, to watching TV shows, to doing homework, to so much more. Though the youth use the internet a lot, it does not mean that a campaign targeting youth will automatically reach their targeted audience, and even if they do, without the right message, that outreach would be virtually useless. In his book Mobilising Generation 2.0 A Practical Guide to using Web 2.0: Technologies to Recruit, Organize, and Engage Youth, author Ben Rigby along with the authors of essays throughout this book, offer advice as to the means and the modes to best reach these audiences and to have an effective online presence.

In the book, Rigby makes several interesting points, while giving lots of useful information. The book describes a number of different tools which can be helpful in campaigns targeting audiences online, such as websites, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Wikis, and more. Each chapter not only details what the tool is, but also gives examples of how to effectively use the tools. For example, with blogs, the author details a number of different tones a blog can have, such as an issues blog, or a blog to engage and recruit volunteers, or on Facebook, you can make up a 'persona' for the organization, similar to a mascot who is closely wound into the theme of the cause you are working for. Also detailed is how these tools work, and the features which are distinct to each. For example, messaging and profiles for different outlets.

One overarching point that the author made was how many of the social aspect of these platforms. Many of these platforms have the ability to allow users to hold a two-way dialogue with Friends, followers, members and so-forth. In many instances it can be very beneficial to keep these lines of communication open, even with the risk of not having full control of the content and dialogue. The benefits will often outweigh the costs in these situations because you not only engage the followers, but if there is criticism, you can address it head on, and where necessary make changes or alterations. Also connected to the social aspect of the internet is the fact that there are not only two way channels between you and your followers, but also between you and the rest of the online world, and it will (usually) benefit your cause to engage others in the online community. Essentially, to get traffic to your site, pages, or blogs, it is useful to give traffic to others' sites, pages, or blogs and show this traffic through commenting, "liking", retweeting, and so forth.

Another interesting point, which I myself am guilty of doing, and which the author again points out several times throughout the book, is the fact that when it comes down to it, we are people. In campaigns, and when we're stuck with a screen between us, we often forget that on the other end of that check, or the other end of that blog, there is a human being, that it is not just some electrical entity, but that there are people with relationships, interests, feelings, and thoughts and that it is important to not just think of them as a donor or follower, but to think strategically about them as a person with all of these characteristics and rather than thinking how to best get $50, think of it as how best to engage that person through this outlet. As the internet makes things much faster and arguably less personal (in the sense that many things take place on the computer rather than in person) we forget that behind all of this work there are people like you and me, and they want to be treated as such.

Between the tactful insights given in this book, along with the reality checks it also gives, I think that this book was very helpful in articulating how to effectively use the internet and technology to reach the public.

The take aways from Weiner's mistakes

Last semester I wrote a paper on John Edwards and his affair. My advice to politicians in this paper, and based off of the crisis situation which is John Edwards, was do not cheat. If you cheat, you will get caught. If you are dumb enough to cheat, and it comes out, do not be so dumb as to lie about it. You will not get away with it and you will simply dig yourself a bigger hole. We’ve seen it with Edwards, we’ve seen it with Clinton and we’ve seen it with many others. It’s just not a smart thing to do.

Ah, if only Congressman Anthony Weiner had taken this advice. Late in May, a photo emerged of a man in his underwear, which was sent on Twitter to a young Seattle woman. Weiner took down the post and claimed he had fell victim to a hacker attack. For days the Congressman stuck to this story. And many of us believed him. I mean, why would someone with any knowledge of social media or of Twitter post a picture like that of them? It just doesn’t make any sense. After seeing it day after day on the front of the Washington Post, and reading his answers to some questions (he didn’t know if the picture was of him, calling a reporter a jack ass…) it did make you think about his innocence. And then he came clean. In a nearly 30 minute press conference, Weiner explained that, unfortunately, he had posted those pictures, and there are others, but that he was going to stay in office regardless.

So what is the moral of the story other than “don’t cheat on your wife”? The answer- “Be careful what you put on the internet.” Although most of us are not putting lewd photos of ourselves online, we are putting a lot of other information. It is important an important lesson that even when you are trying to do something secretly (Weiner meant to send his photo through a personal message) mistakes happen and it can still get out. Even if he had successfully sent the image through a personal message, once it’s sent, it would be in this other person’s procession, and they too, could have released it. As we’ve heard in the past “don’t say anything you wouldn’t want to see on the front page of the New York Times,” don’t do things online you don’t want to see on the front page of the New York Times, or spread all over the internet for that matter.

And to the politicians out there- people are waiting for you to fall, they will take any opportunity to help nudge you down that slippery slope. Not to sound overly paranoid, but people are watching you. Be careful what you do. Be careful what you put online. It has happened over and over again, but these things do surface, and once they do it’s hard to go back.

Huh, there's more to this than I thought...

Until taking I began taking a course on Internet Advocacy, I like many people, only knew minimal amounts about how to use social media. Yes, I had a Facebook, but I only vaguely knew how to use it effectively (unless, of course, I used it to find a friend, write on their wall, or make a status, I have been quite effective at these rudimentary tasks). Yes, I had a Twitter, but I had only Tweeted a handful of times. If asked the question, do you know how to measure the impact of these tools for an advocacy campaign, I would have laughed and simply said “no.” I just read Alan Rosenblatt’s articles Measuring the Impact of Your Social Media Program and Rules of Social Engagement which briefly describe some online tools which can help calculate the Return on Investment (ROI) for social advocacy campaigns. Rosenblatt identifies three ways in which you can measure the ROI: reach, engagement, and driving web traffic home.

The reach refers to the size of the audience. Essentially, this means how many followers or fans you have (depending on the platform- Twitter or Facebook). On Twitter, I learned, you can increase your followers by using hashtags (anything connected to a #.) Websites such as Hashtags.org can measure the amount of times your hashtag is used. MyTweeple.com allows you to download your followers in order to analyze them.

Engagement refers to the interactions with the audience and the by the audience when they work to spread the word on your behalf. On Twitter this can include retweeting (which can be tracked on Backtype.com, ReTweetRank.com, and SocialMention.com), recommending people to follow you, and more. On Facebook if they ‘like’ your page or share it on their wall, etc.    

Driving web traffic home has to do with page views and visitors to the website. Bit.ly and HootSuite.com are tools which can enable you to shorten links so you can use them in Twitter posts without taking up as many characters. These tools can also allow you to measure how many clicks you from that URL.

In just a short amount of time, through reading these two articles, I was able to learn a great deal about how to measure the effectiveness of an online campaign. This is very important information especially in this time when online campaigns are becoming commonplace. These articles were brief but informative and I recommend them, and the sites mentioned above, to anyone interested in the field.

 

Obama online in '08, and how it's shaping 2012

Barack Obama was certainly not the first politician to use the internet as a part of his campaign strategy, but in 2008, he sure did set the bar higher for politicians in the future. Moving forward from Obama’s 2008 campaign, politicians and communications specialists have the opportunity to learn some valuable lessons and tips for using electronics to help win an election. Colin Delany discusses some of the take-aways from Obama ‘08’s strategy in his articles, Learning from Obama: Lessons for Online Communicators in 2009 and Beyond and Using the Internet to Win in 2010.

There were a few major themes discussed in both articles which I found to be interesting. Two of the broad ideas agree are important to keep in mind in using the internet for a campaign includes: 1. The online portion of the campaign must be a part of, and not separate from the whole campaign, and 2. It is not enough to just have an online aspect of the campaign, it needs to be maintained and managed regularly and effectively.

I think these two points are especially important. In 2008, the Obama campaign integrated his online presence into the rest of the campaign- it was not a separate entity. The website, emails, Facebook page, Twitter- everything that was online was on message and consistent with the rest of the campaign. This set the stage for the next point which I thought was important- being able to not only have these tools, but to use them successfully.

The Obama campaign did not just create a website and Facebook and Twitter accounts in order to leave them, idle. The campaign set “focused and measurable goals” as Delany points out, and stuck to those goals. This campaign used these tools to interact with the public in order to gain funds and support as well as to inform supporters and let supporters and organizers inform the campaign with what was working and what wasn’t.

In addition to these two broad concepts that Delany discussed, he also wrote about more specific details that the Obama team utilized and will notably be important for campaigners in the future to employ if they want to keep up. This ranged from which online tools to use, such as a website, Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter accounts, and blogging, as well as how to use these, what their purposes are, and what to keep in mind throughout the campaign in regards to the online presence.

As the 2012 presidential election begins to heat up, it is likely that many of these campaigns will utilize (and many have already begun to use) these tools and tips to help their campaigns. It is still too soon to tell, but it will be interesting to observe as technology and peoples’ online creativity continue to evolve how the campaigns will move forward from 2008, and set the bar higher, once again.    

Three GOP Hopefuls, Three Facebook Strategies

I was fishing around on Facebook, looking different politicians’ pages to see what they were up to when I noticed some differences in the strategies used on these pages.

The top of Newt Gingrich’s page shows his logo, “NEWT2012” an unsurprising blue and read, with a swish below and a star. The whole page, in fact is in red, white and blue. Very American. Below the logo is “a special announcement from Newt” with the video of Newt announcing that he will run for president. Below the video is a link to get involved, followed by a link to donate, followed by a link to “follow Newt on Twitter.” And that’s it. No announcements or updates from the campaign on the main page. If you happen to notice the small icon on the side that says “wall,” then yes, those things appear, but it is not out in the open, and people just passing through the site might miss this. His “Likes” are a mix, mostly politically or news oriented from Fox News, to other pro-Gingrich pages, but with a few wild-cards thrown in such as “Geno’s Chowder and Sandwich Shop”.

In America, when reading, most people start at the top left corner of a page work their way across, and move down following the same pattern. If you did this with Mit Romney’s page, the first content you would find is a red button that says “Donate,” then a mobile phone with the Romney logo, then the just the Romney logo, and ‘R’ in, shockingly enough, red, white, and blue, then the Twitter ‘T’, followed by the YouTube logo. Click on these icons and it will lead you to a picture, with a link as a caption taking you to the respective sites. The Romney wall, unlike Gingrich’s is up and running, with posts nearly ever day, the most recent of which inviting followers to watch on Facebook as he announces his candidacy on June 2. Where Gingrich showed that he likes left leaning news shows, chowder, and, well, himself, Romney does not seem to “Like” anything. While Newt had his wall as a small icon off to the side, Romney has a similar small icon titled “Misery Index.” Click on this and you’ll find a petition against Obama regarding the creation of jobs.

Tim Pawlenty took a third route. The top of his page are a serious of amateur pictures. The wall is below, with posts almost every day. Unlike the two above, Pawlenty’s “Contribute” link is not prominent, and off to the side like Gingrich’s wall, and Romney’s “Misery Index”, and his logo is no where to be found. What does he like? The Minnesota Vikings. The color scheme? Black, white, and that Facebook blue.

It’s surprising to me that Pawlenty, who used Facebook as a means of announcing his candidacy as well as his formation of an exploratory committee would seem to have the dullest, and least enticing page of the three. Gingrich’s seems to be the most organized, and Romney is somewhere in the middle. It will be interesting to see if these Facebook strategies evolve as the campaign progresses.   

Aps, Ads, and Texting, Oh My! How Mobile is Going to Change Campaigning in 2012

If Facebook and the internet were the big game changers in the 2008 election, then what will fill those shoes in 2012? Well, word on the streets of DC is that the cell phone is going to do just that. Recently Scott Conroy, White House correspondent for Real Clear Politics spoke in a lecture I attended and voiced his opinion that cellular was going to be the next big thing to hit elections. Katie Harbath reiterated this point in her article The Rise of Mobile, and Michael Stein and Katrin Verclas agreed in their article Using Mobile Phones in Advocacy Campaigns.

So how is the cell phone, a piece of technology that has been popular for about 15 years, going to all of a sudden make a big splash in the campaign world?

Well there are a few ways. The big reason though, is the power of the Smartphone. According to a Pew study, 26 percent of Americans used their mobile devices to “learn about or participate in the 2012 midterm election campaign.” This number is surely to rise in the 2012 election cycle as nearly 50% of the nation uses a Smartphone, and campaigns learns to use these phones as a means of communicating with the public in a more sophisticated manner.

As Harbath notes in her article, Smartphone devises are useful in that now, like never before, campaigns can create mobile ads for fundraising, for online surveys, as a means of gaining email address to send further information. Additionally, the phones can help the public find polling locations and can learn more about the candidates with a swipe of a finger on websites which are optimized for the mobile phones.

Stein and Verclas explain how to maximize the effectiveness of text messaging in a campaign. Texting can be used to alert supporters, supporters can text legislators, texts can be used to arrange meetings, (I know, I sound like Bubba from Forest Gump talking about shrimp, “You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it…”), but really, text messages can be used in an innumerable amount of ways to communicate with, and get information from the public in a very direct and personal manner.

Additionally, websites such as campaignapps.com give clear instructions on how to create and manage apps to support campaign efforts. These apps can help not only with getting information to voters, but also to help organize the campaign workers themselves.  

These articles made convincing cases for how mobile will effect the next election cycle, and it will certainly be interesting to observe what works and what doesn’t in using mobile phones to mobilize voters.     

   

The Internet and the Changing Society

I recently finished reading Clay Shirky’s, Here Comes Everybody, and I would like to begin by saying, I am not a journalist. Yes I am sharing information which is published on the internet. Yes, this is a blog. But no, I do not consider myself a journalist. Shirky addresses the way the internet has changed the perception and perhaps rules of journalism, and a number of other interesting topics in his book which discusses the way technology, specifically the internet, is helping to reshape the global society.   

You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s old

I was born in the late ‘80s, grew up with the Web, and can hardly remember a time when e-mail wasn’t a main fixture of my communication. Shirky comes back to the point several times throughout his book that, after a technological innovation ceases to be an innovation, but rather, just a fixture of everyday life, it is at this point that the technology becomes interesting for society, and the effects of this technology on society can begin to be studied. As programs continue to be created on the internet, human connections continue to evolve (a phenomenon which will be discussed next), but as Shirky points out, and this is, I think, an important realization on the reach of the internet, “social tools don’t create collective action—they merely remove the obstacles to it.” An interesting current example of this has to do with the Arab Spring. Many people credited online tools such as Facebook and Twitter for causing the revolutions which are sweeping the Arab world. This observation however, according to Shirky’s view, and a view that I agree with, is incorrect. Facebook and Twitter gave members of the demonstration an easy outlet to tell a lot of people about their demonstrations, but the people of those nations would have been restless, and the demonstrations (likely) would have occurred regardless of those tools.

We may be sitting alone behind a computer screen, but boy are we social

To be fair, this is semi-exaggerated. As Shirky points out, the internet as communication has not become a substitute for being somewhere physically (a point which was not always known, but came to be realized from the above point that, with time, effects can be observed). Having said this, the internet has given individuals more opportunities to group together. Shirky discusses how the cost of finding like-minded people has decreased, so the online participation of groups has thus increased. This can be observed through political campaigns and the use of Facebook. For instance, it is much easier for me to go Facebook and click a ‘Like’ button, showing my support for candidate X than it is for me to go to the campaign headquarters and get a button that shows my support. Though ‘liking’ candidate X is a minimal move, it can be a stepping stone. So you’ve liked their page, you’ve made it public to the world, or at least the members of your networks, that you have support for this candidate. Now you might be more likely to go to Ms. X’s campaign site which you noticed on the Facebook page. Here, you will likely have the opportunity give your email address. Once you do that, you might be asked to volunteer. Once this happens, you may feel so invested that you choose to give a small donation. The level of involvement grows. This will not happen for everyone who “Likes’ the page, but people are social beings, and given the opportunity to join a group, such as on Facebook, the cost is so low that they will be more inclined to do this small step.

Just call me one in a mass of amateurs

This point relates to the above in how people now have a platform to not only meet at a low cost, but to present information at a low cost as well. As Shirky notes, “reproduction, distribution, categorization” are now extremely easy with blogs. Shirky calls this phenomenon “mass amateurism” where individuals who are not professional journalists by conventional means, act as journalists reporting on an array of different topics. The difference, as Shirky points out, is filtering. Whereas editors pick and choose what articles end up in the newspaper, with blogging, the writers are also the editors. Each case seems to be a double-edged sword. When it is only the editor choosing what goes into the paper, that places an awful lot of responsibility in the hands of a single person, and should that person choose to leave out certain stories, the effects of the public not having that information could be, well I wouldn’t say catastrophic, but it could have serious implications for some. On the other hand there are editors for a reason- someone to hold writers accountable (hopefully) and check the quality of the work. With blogging there is not this filtering process, so anything can be “reported.” This can be good in that bloggers can bring to light important information that reporters and editors my miss. It can also be dangerous because really anyone can make a blog and this has the potential for a lot of misinformation and a lot of disinformation. As Shirky points out though, we have already come too far. It is too late to ask the question if this is reasonable or not.     

Pawlenty Taking Some Tips, Tag-Lines, and Tactics from Obama in ‘08

So how do you tell America you’re running for President? Well apparently these days the answer is through an online video. Former Minnesota Governor, Tim Pawlenty was set to announce his candidacy for President in Iowa on Monday, May 23, 2011. Instead, on Sunday, May 22, 2011, Pawlenty released a web- video making this statement. Followers of Pawlenty on Twitter and Facebook, or those who may have gone to his website were able to view the 2 ¼ minute video, which explained that the next day in Iowa, he would really begin to kick off the campaign. This is not unlike Pawlenty who, about two months ago, announced that he was forming an exploratory committee via Facebook video.   

Now, for the first four months of this year, I dedicated much of my time to writing my Thesis on the use of hope as an emotional appeal in political campaigns. I conducted an historical analysis of four focal campaigns, John F. Kennedy’s in ‘60, Ronald Reagan’s in ‘80, Bill Clinton’s in ‘92, and Barack Obama’s ’08, as well as the campaigns of the candidate who won the presidency in the election years immediately prior to and following the fore mentioned campaigns. In addition to researching the context (economic state and involvement in foreign crises) of the country during those election years, I also analyzed dozens and dozens of campaign advertisements and speeches.

Now, I can go on and on on this topic, but the point that I’m trying to make here, is that I have studied a lot (and I mean a lot) of Obama’s advertisements from 2008, and there is no question that Obama based his campaign on the idea of hope. The advertisements and statements the President has made in regards to the 2012 campaign all point to him re-focusing on this idea. The web-video that Pawlenty released Sunday, seems to show that he too will be running on hope.

The video begins with an image of a search engine, with the words “how to tell America you’re running for president.” Melodic music (typical of hope-based advertisements) plays in the background as Pawlenty explains that he could get up behind a podium and make this announcement, but that wouldn’t be making any tough decisions, and instead he wanted to be straight forward in saying how much trouble the country is in. (How he thinks making a web-video shows that he can make “tough decisions” is beyond me, and a topic for another blog, but I digress). Pawlenty goes on to explain how he is a product of the American Dream, a tactic used by both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama when they were initially running for President. Theses statements are voiced over a backdrop of scenes that evoke hope- the flag waving in the wind, crowds of people cheering, a sun rising over a field, people going to work, as well as images of children, signifying the future. The advertisement ends with Pawlenty saying, “We’ll change our country, and this time, it will be for the better.” Here, Pawlenty brings back a word and a subsequent theme of Obama’s campaign in the 2008 election, change. In this case, Pawlenty is clearly making a jab at Obama, implying that the changes which have come during his presidency have not been good, and it seems as though Pawlenty is trying to recycle the idea for this campaign.

In the 2008 election, Obama seemed to have won the online battle against McCain. In the 2012 election cycle, there is no doubt that the internet is going to play an increasingly important role in reaching the public. It seems that Tim Pawlenty is taking every chance he can to tweet and update his way onto the screens of the American electorate. Pawlenty appears to be building off of many of the strengths Obama utilized in the 2008 election, but will Pawlenty have the ability to beat the President at his own game? The odds seem against him at this point, but as a political science professor I had in undergrad used to always say, “Anything can happen in politics.”

Elections and Resignations: The Effects of Nanotargeting

In the past decade, the use of the internet for political campaigns has evolved and become more sophisticated. What started with a basic website with an allotment of possibly a mere 1 percent of a campaign’s funding has turned into full-fledged online campaigns utilizing not only websites, but social networking and social media sites, and online advertisements. With every institution looking to go the furthest with their funding, it is important for campaigns, too, to be able to gauge how effective these online campaigns are, if effective at all.

In his article The Digital Playbook: Can online ads move poll numbers, Peter Greenberger explains a study proving that online advertisements have the ability to increase awareness and action for a campaign. The study showed that for this particular campaign had an increase of donations from 42 percent 50 percent and individuals seemed to have a strong recall of the ads. These findings showed better results than a PSA campaign which was also studied and had no measurable effect on awareness to advertisement recall.

A benefit to online advertising, as Josh Koster outlines, seems to be the advertisers’ ability to use long-tail nanotargeting. Long-tail nanotargeting means targeting an extremely fractured segment of the audience with ads that are highly targeted towards that type of person. For instance, it is easy to find basic demographic information about an individual online, but with this, keywords are also targeted. If a person does a search for say, healthcare, certain ads will be triggered that concern healthcare matters. Koster notes that Google and Facebook “represent the pinnacle of targeting technology” because so much information can be garnered through individuals’ searches and profile information. Koster explains how Al Franken’s Senate race proved the advantages of targeting niche markets in order to get his message across.

In another article co-written by Koster, he and Tyler Davis explain how nanotargeting assisted in pressuring Lou Dobbs to resign from CNN. This case showed how a group targeted CNN employees through Facebook advertising, pressuring them to stand up against Lou Dobbs whose coverage of the immigration debate was often controversial. This case showed how even with a small budget, a strategic campaign, targeted toward the right people and utilizing the right resources can make a huge impact.

As nanotargeting and online advertising progress, as is sure to happen with more and more campaigns catching on to the techniques, it will be interesting to see how campaigns take this process to the next level and personalize messages to stand out even further.

Trump's Twitter Tells it All

Earlier this week, Donald Trump made the announcement we all, or at least most of us knew he would: he announced that he was not going to run for President. It seemed clear to many that the real-estate mogul turned television star entered the race to enhance his fame, not because he had any real interest in becoming the next president of the United States. As Trump noted, business is the industry he loves, and that is what he wants to focus on.

I was looking through the potential Republican candidates’ Twitter feeds comparing content, and even from that it was clear that Trump was just not serious about the job. While, on May 13 Tim Pawlenty tweeted about his view on Medicare and Social Security, Trump was tweeting about a sneak peek of Celebrity Apprentice and the mattresses in his hotel. On May 2, Mitt Romney tweeted about freedom and justice, while Trump tweeted about his Golf show. And the trend continues in this way…

Sure, like most politicians Trump proves to be a good self-promoter. A lot of people, and a lot of rich people, are good at promoting themselves, but that does not make them fit to be president. Just from looking at Trump’s Twitter posts from the last three weeks I wonder how anyone could believe that he was a viable candidate for President, or, for that matter, that he even had any interest in being President.

It is clear even from these tweets where Trump’s priorities and focus lie. On May 16, when he finally made the announcement that he would not run, Trump tweeted “This has been a very difficult decision regarding the Presidential run and I want to thank all my twitter fans for your fantastic support.” The next day, he had moved on from his potential presidential bid. And where did his focus shift? “Vote for the next Miss USA…”

Online Politics 101 Should Take a Lesson from Editing Tips 101

As a graduate student in communication who just finished writing my thesis on political campaigns, I have read dozens upon dozens of articles, both scholarly and not, written on political communications. Recently I read Colin Delany’s Online Politics 101 article from ePolitics. In the article, Delany went into great depth explaining the different (possible) components of an online campaign. While I would give Delany an ‘A’ for the breadth and depth of this piece, the quality of writing was inconsistent and at times incoherent.

As I say, Delany does a good job of explaining why the internet is a useful tool, describing how easy it is, how it can disseminate information quickly and to all corners of the world, and the benefits of the interconnectivity of the internet. He details rules to be followed for online politics in order to maximize the benefits of the internet. Delany then explains nearly every mode, or at least every mode that I’m aware of, for getting a message out to the public online. From tips to creating effective websites, to email lists, to social networking tools, and more, Delany provides an in-depth outline on how to use each of these tactics effectively.

While his content was informative and showed his vast knowledge on the topic, his editing could use some work. As I was reading, I stumbled upon this sentence “How much is does online politics have in common…” How much is does? I took it to be a slight error and continued reading. “Is does” was followed by “Your readers don’t want clever- the want to find what they’re looking for”, and “if readers can’t see how old it is, the can’t know IF…”, and “…a person’s propensity to give money to a campaigh…”, and “…how does a search engine finds your site…” As I’m re-writing these sentences, I notice little green and red squiggly lines under certain words. Shouldn’t “the” be “they”? Why, yes it should. Did you mean “campaign” rather than “campaigh”? Well, as a matter of fact, he did. As someone with such a profound knowledge of computers, I hope that Delany would know these elementary word processing editing tools as well. Delany referred to credibility several times through his 65 page article, and, for me, I find credibility to drop as spelling errors increase.

In contrast to Delany’s lengthy article, Dr. Alan Rosenblatt’s four articles on ­­­The Dimensions of a Digitally Networked Campaign were brief and focused, while being professional and well written. His articles clearly indicate and detail the 1-, 2-, and 3-Dimensions of digitally networked campaigning, describing their level of measurement, the direction of communication, the activity, and the amount of message control for each. 

I happened to appreciate both the straight-to-the-point writing of Rosenblatt as well as the colloquial jargon used by Delany. I found Delany’s article entertaining (and informative) to read. Having said this, I thought about how, when sifting through articles on the internet, trying to broaden my knowledge on a topic, I tend to discredit those where I am distracted from the content by keeping tallies of the spelling errors. In the age of Facebook and Twitter, of LOL and J, I have noticed a growing trend, and Delany’s article brings this to light but is by no means an extreme, of unedited and sometimes less than professional work on the internet. If one wishes to be taken seriously then write in whatever style or dialect you choose, just please pay attention to those green and red squiggles.