New Media in Politics
From Baruchnewmedia
Contents |
Introduction
We are living in an information age, where technology has made new media, such as Wikipedia, Facebook, and YouTube, readily available. In this new media environment, we have the ability to actively engage in the political process by commenting on and creating blogs, sending interesting newspaper articles to those we know or who follow us (e.g. on twitter), and sending YouTube videos to all who are interested. In other words, today, we no longer have to be passive observers in the political media process; it is far easier to actively participate in it.
In the 2008 presidential election, a variety of factors contributed to the complexity of the election. The positions taken by democratic and republican candidates differed dramatically on such issues as the war in Iraq and universal health care. Two democratic candidates were also fighting to be either the first black male or first female president. To get people's attention, both candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama used the internet. And as almost all observers now agree Barack Obama did a much better job of it then either Mrs. Clinton or the Republican challenger John McCain. His use of Facebook for example, helped Obama raise far more money then either of his competitors and allowed him to create a vast grass roots organization that was crucial in helping him win the election. He was also able to respond to mistakes made by McCain such as when his Republican challenger stated the economy was ok when in fact we were entering the worst recession the United States has had since the depression. (http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/ss/election/115362.php)
After being elected President Obama and his administration have continued to use web 2.0 technologies to reach out to the public by creating such sites as www.change.gov.
References:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15984.html
http://blogs.zdnet.com/weblife/?p=261
New Media and American Politics
This age of new media has had a profound impact on American politics. New media enables people to feel closer to politicians and to stay informed at all times from anywhere. Citizens are able to be actively engaged participants in politics because of these new media technologies. For example, people were able sign up for mobile alerts from political candidates which is one way they stayed in the know, but there were also many other methods to stay updated, like YouTube. Anyone with an Internet connection could participate or simply watch all of the exchanges going on, on YouTube or anywhere else. Sixteen of the one-time presidential candidates had channels on YouTube, and seven of those announced their candidacy through YouTube, which got millions of views. Not only can politicians use YouTube to connect with potential voters, normal people can also express themselves about the politicians and their campaigns. There were even presidential campaigns in which voters asked candidates questions through YouTube. Many of these sort of exchanges happen on YouTube all the time, some examples are:
- Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney's campaign asked supporters to make political commercials for his campaign. What he got was hundreds of free online ads after they were put on the Web.
- Hundreds of thousands of voters responded to Senator Clinton's request for them to vote for her campaign theme song on YouTube.
- Senator Barack Obama reached almost five million voters on YouTube with a 37-minute clip of his speech on race in America, shattering the notion that only short, lowbrow clips bubble to the top of the Internet's political ecosystem.
Some candidates successfully used celebrities like Michael J. Fox (Sen. McCaskill- '06) and Chuck Norris (Sen. McCain - '08) in their viral videos to promote their messages.
Along with video's on YouTube, nonprofit organizations often have their own websites on which they have their own videos. MoveOn.org is a liberal leaning organization that promotes their agenda using popular videos that they host both on their site and on YouTube. They use public figures, such as Will Ferrel, to attract voters to their videos and have created a large loyal following. The best way to understand their reach is by looking at an example. In the 2006 elections in both Montana and Virginia, MoveOn’s membership can be said to have been the deciding votes in both Jon Tester and Jim Webb’s victories. Tester won the Montana election by only 2,644 votes where the MoveOn member turnout calls in that state was 73, 843. Similarly in Virginia Jim Webb won by only 7,236 votes where the MoveOn member turnout calls in that state were 345,289. MoveOn was able to influence their members in voting by having a vast archive of left-leaning videos and articles.
It's obvious that YouTube has affected politics tremendously. People are able to interact with each other at any given time, absolutely anywhere in the world. Many advocate groups, politicians and regular citizens were able to get their ideas seen and heard by millions of people with the help of YouTube, which was unheard of before with the barriers of time and space.
Along with YouTube, Facebook has also have a profound affect on American Politics. In 2008 around 8.2% of adults in the United States were active on Facebook: 40% identify as liberal, 30% as conservative, and 30% as moderate. Looking at Facebook usage from a state to state perspective sheds new light on the correlation of Facebook usage to involvement in politics. Looking at the ten states with greatest voter turnout in the 2004 election shows that four of the ten were in the top ten states in Facebook usage amongst adults and eight of the ten are above the average for Facebook usage. A shocking number is that of Facebook penetration amongst adults in Washington D.C., the county’s political capital. 47% percent of adults in D.C. use Facebook, beating the country’s average by almost 40%.
Twitter had a huge impact on the 2008 elections. This new media was so effective during the campaigns as well as the elections of 2008, that "the service went down due to the volume of usage." Twitter has been very efficient when it comes to advertising politics and elections as well as campaigns all over the United States. During the 2008 elections, people would twitter any updates that were going on as well as tweet their friends to urge them to vote. This type of technology has been very successful because it has created an environment where people all over the United States and the world can communicate at the same time on the same issue, in this case regarding politics. Even the President of the United States, Barack Obama, has a Twitter account which by the way helped him gain many votes during his campaign. Through his Twitter account President Obama would communicate to his Twitter friends what his administration will work on and what they will strive for.
As of September 16, 2011, Barack Obama has topped 10 million followers on Twitter. This makes him the third-most-followed Twittter user in he world, according to Twitter Counter, which tracks the social network's 14 million users. (http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/09/obama-twitter-following-tops-10-million/)
References:
http://www.insidefacebook.com/2008/01/02/2008-statistics-on-american-politics-on-facebook
http://www.newmediamusings.com/2006/11/moveons_electio.html
http://www.mediabistro.com/agencyspy/original/donkphant_democrats_vs_republicans.jpg
Politics Has A New Face
Politics used to be stuffy.
The fact of the matter is that politics used to be something the men spoke about over cigars while the women jabbered a little about over tea. Little salon meetings where you can get to know who is on your party’s side and so on... Politics has a new face these days.
Politics is nothing without the media. And well it goes the other way to. Sure we know that the newspapers, talk radio, and television news- pundits and all- have a blast discussing and ripping apart politics, but I want to focus on is websites that are changing politics.
When Obama was running for office he - meaning his staff- launched a Twitter campaign. This use of Twitter really connected him to the Gen Y. Blogs, Facebook and Twitter have become a huge part of everyday politics.
Recently, The Source published an article about a website called Hip Hop Republicans. The article, written by Lulaine Compere, discussed how urban life and Hip Hop is more commonly associated with Liberals. However, Hip Hop Republicans is a blogesk website that is, well, Republican. Among commentary on music, culture and politics there is also a list of republican blogs, mostly, geared toward the youth of America.
Another interesting site geared to those politically inclined is 20DC. This site is truly amazing. It is a social networking site geared at politics. It’s features include, but are not limited to: The Grass, which is a place where you can start a discussion or a group or even get people together to lobby or rally. There is Town Hall where you can discuss issues in your neighborhood or county with others who live there. It is amazing. It is a perfect description of how politics is changing.
My personal favorite site is Politweets. Yes it is quite what it sounds like. Twitter for politics. You can follow Politweets on Twitter like you would anything else but it has it’s own site at elections.twitter.com where it is a twitter interface that collects all the tweets that mention the elections. It was started during the 2008 presidential election and we will have to wait and see if it starts back up for the 2012 election, which I see happening.
All the sites that I mentioned are not only changing how politics is done but also making the “youngsters” a little more interested. It has become easier to get involved and by infiltrating the media world it is hard to peak inside and see what it’s all about.
One of the newest political strategies to engage the youth has been throught the use of new media tools. politicians are using Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to bait adolescants aged 18-24. http://socialtimes.com/study-how-do-you-engage-apathetic-youth-in-politics-catch-them-on-facebook-youtube-twitter_b17202
Reference:
New Media & American Politics - Pre-2008
New Media has been used in conjunction with politics since the technology emerged. Because of the perception that, to date, the 2008 U.S. Presidential election most effectively used and aggressively, particularly the Obama campaign, relied on new media, that this is the first attempt its inclusion.
Candidates slowly began generating campaign websites in the 1990’s, expanding to the new emerging uses every election cycle. The usage of biographical DVD’s in 2000, the beginning usage of social networks in 2004 and of internet contributions, and the explosion of social networking usage in 2006 and 2008.
--Jorge Ruiz 17:45, 14 April 2010 (CDT)
Politicians' Use of Social Networking
In the recent election, all of the politicians involved made use of social networks such as MySpace, YouTube and Facebook, but Barack Obama took it to the next level by creating his own social network, [1]. Two million profiles were created on that website, and five million people showed their support via MySpace and Facebook. They used these websites to involve the new generation which revolves around the media (Generation M). The above mentioned social networks along with many others, reached out to the youth and made them feel as if their opinion really mattered. Politicians are actually accessible to everyone with an Internet connection, as where before people felt distant because the only way to get a feel for politicians was to watch them on television or read about them in the newspapers.[2]
President Obama's social network gave supporters the opportunity and encouragement to communicate amongst themselves. Members of my.barackobama.com could join local groups, create events and sign up for updates on the campaign. When Hillary Clinton dropped out of the race, the people on Obama's campaign e-mail list were asked to rally Hillary's supporters by hosting "Unite for Change" houseparties. Almost 4,000 parties were held. This shows that these social networks are useful in actually mobilizing the public and not merely people chatting about what should be done.[3]
In addition to that, President Obama’s use of the internet in this campaign will be compared in the future with the historic first TV debate between JFK and Nixon. In that debate, Nixon was recovering from illness and, wearing little makeup, looked wan and uncomfortable, in contrast to the composed Kennedy. Nixon’s performance in the debate was perceived to be mediocre in the visual medium of television. The polls changed after the debate launching Kennedy to the presidency. It would unfair to say that JFK won because he looks good on camera but in the same way it will be silly not to give him credit for understanding how a TV debate could benefit his candidacy and give him an edge over Nixon. In a similar way, the same can be said about Obama and how he used internet to organize volunteers, raise funds, and communicate with voters to gain an edge in the campaign.
The main factor to use internet so powerfully has been the growing possibilities of social networking technologies and their massive reception. The use of new social networking software gave so great results to President Obama and his advisers that they are going to continue to use them from the their office. Every morning, Obama will receive a briefing from the ideas and opinions submitted by the Americans people through the websites such as, Change.gov and Whitehouse.gov. We do not know what the impact of this could be, but it is definitely encouraging. Online communities and social networking tools encourage two-ways communication and these sites could become a place to have these conversations with the administration. It is clear that a lot of progress need to be done to assure that the government is listening, that this is not just a propaganda tool, but once again, this is just the beginning. This is encouraging to see that President Obama has been using social networking technology as one more way to stay in touch with the people, especially this is important in this difficult economic crisis.[4]
New Media and President Barack Obama
Use of New Media by Obama Campaign
New Media has become very relevant in our daily lives and plays a strong role in fields such as education, communication and politics. During the last presidential election, the use of new media became mainstream. For instance, political parties used new media to fundraise and to help make important political decisions.
The Obama campaign used new media wisely to achieve their political goals. The campaign raised an estimated $700 million, with a high percentage of small donors. The small donations were about $10 to $100 per person. The enabling of online donations with debit or credit cards was one of the most effective technologies the Obama campaign used. Equally important, the Obama campaign used new media to inform their supporters about relevant political decisions. For example, they used text messaging to announce Joseph Biden as Obama's running mate. Most news channels (traditional/old media) were expecting to get the news first, but the campaign made the announcement directly to the people through the use of new media.
--Ousmane 11:09, 12 December 2008 (CDT)
The effectiveness of the Obama campaign in using new media as a funding source has dramatically altered the political landscape. No longer are large donors the only contributors to political campaigns. Individual donations, when aggregated with new media technologies, have proven to be an effective alternative. New media also allows politicians to directly connect with their constituents. No longer are politicians beholden to old media sources to spread their message. New media allows politicians to gain support earlier and revise plans based on feedback from constituents.
--John 09:58, 20 November 2008 (CST)
Article from The New York Times: How Obama Tapped Into Social Networks’ Power [5]
--Lana 10:57, 30 October 2008 (CDT)
--DavidFang 11:07, 30 October 2008 (CDT)
--eli 21:40, 13 November 2008 (CST) http://www.knowthenetwork.com/blog/?p=672
--eli http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7722721.stm
--neal http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/03/welcome-new-media-campaign-tools-2012-0
--eli 22:04, 19 November 2008 (CST)[6]
According to Wikipedia, Twitter is a social networking and micro blogging service that enables its users to send and read others user updates known as tweets.This morning I have seen politicians use twitter when Geithner and Bernanke were testifying before on capital hill. An article on techdirt also cited an instance where politicians are trying to use twitter at their advantage.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080708/1602521624.shtml
New Media in US Politics
Under President Obama's "Open Government Initiative," federal agencies are to expand their transparency, participation and collaboration to the public. Under this initiative, many agencies revamped their policy on the use of new media and began offering these new tools to the public. President Obama was quoted on 01/29/2009 as saying, "My administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strenghthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government." http://www.whitehouse.gov/open
Government agencies such as the agencies under the Department of Homeland Security umbrella have all started incorporating the use of new media tools at their disposal. Government agencies are constantly showing their growing dependency on new media. USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) http://uscis.gov which is a component of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), now advertises their blog, The Beacon (http://blog.uscis.gov/), and wants customers to follow them on Twitter. The main page of the website shows a link to the heading, "USCIS Social Media" with links to the blog, Twitter and Youtube.
Other agencies under DHS that have taken a similar stance of incorporating new media tools within their website and agency include:
- U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) - Facebook, Twitter, YouTube
- U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) - YouTube, Twitter, Flickr
- U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) - YouTube, Facebook, Twitter
- U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) - YouTube, Blog, Podcast, Mobile App
- U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) - YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr
- U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) - Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Mobile App
- U.S. Office of Inspector General (OIG) - Twitter
On September 28, 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder joined U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington Jenny A. Durkan, the Wales family, and the FBI in Seattle today to announce a new media and social media effort to seek information related to the 2001 slaying of Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas C. Wales. Wales worked as a federal prosecutor in the Western District of Washington for 18 years before he was shot and killed 10 years ago in his home the evening of Oct. 11, 2001. This a clear example of politics and law enforcement joining together by enacting the use of new media in their standard operating procedures. http://www.fbi.gov/seattle/press-releases/2011/public-awareness-campaign-launched-to-seek-new-information-in-the-murder-of-assistant-u-s-attorney
In this modern world, New Media have been helpful and useful for politics. In the United States usually refers to internet, talk radio, print, and television journalism and opinions which present a point of the views of the American political. The piece covers alternative media sources including talk radio programs, blogs and other alternative media sources.
Alternative news services
- Inside Politics - Political news from CNN (aka All Politics)
- Politico - Lots of news
- AlterNet - publishes original content as well as journalism from a wide variety of other sources.
- American News Project - English-language journalism network broadcast via the Internet.
- Democracy Now! - syndicated program of news, analysis, and opinion
- Signs of the Times (news website)
- theactivist.org
- The Real News - English-language global online video news network.
Alternative television networks
- Free Speech TV - Using both television and the Internet,
Alternative television programs
- Liberty News|Liberty News TV
- INN World Report - International News Net World Report Evening News.
Alternative radio programs
- Progressive talk radio - talk radio format in the United States devoted to expressing progressive/liberal viewpoints of issues.
- Air America Radio - American radio network specializing in politically liberal talk programming.
- Pacifica Radio - for its liberal and progressive political orientation.
- Democracy Now!
- Nova M Radio - progressive talk programming.
The World Wide Web and the accompanying explosion in "new media" have forced an upheaval in U.S. politics in at least four areas.
- 1) Innovative ways to reach voters
- 2) A radically changed news system
- 3) An unprecedented flood of small donors
- 4) Newly empowered interest groups on the left and the right
New Media in International Politics
New Media is being heavily used in U.S politics. The last U.S presidential election
illustrates that beautifully. All major candidates and their parties used new media in conjunction with old media to spread their opinions and political messages. New media is an important tool in any election, in most developed countries. My concern is the role of New Media in less developed countries. Most of the under-developed or developing countries face many challenges such poverty, unemployment, malaria, and AIDS. I believe that these countries will, one day, take advantage of new media to advance their political views about world affairs, although the challenges of everyday life are huge.
--Ousmane 7:14, 12 December 2008 (CDT)
With new media,the entire world is becoming a global village and there are some dramatic,political implications.It was probably the appalling footage and pictures of horrible scene in Darfur and Zimbabwe that demonstrated the power of motion pictures to affect the collective consciousness of a world audience.People used youtube and social network to make their voice heard.
Youtube :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXdWDM4fmRY
Save darfur:http://savedarfur.org/content?splash=yes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mM3_z2RB3YU&feature=related
A decade ago, regime opponents in Vietnam or Tunisia were still printing leaflets in their basements and handing them out to fellow militants at clandestine meetings. Independent newspapers were no more than a few hastily-stapled photocopies distributed secretly. These days, “subversive” or “counter-revolutionary” material goes on the Internet, and political dissidents and journalists have become “cyber-dissidents” and “online journalists.” Most of them know how to create a blog, organize a chat group, make phone calls through a computer, and use a proxy to get around censorship. New technology allows them to receive and share news out of sight of the authorities. The Web is also a blessing for human rights groups, which can now build a file on a political prisoner with a few mouseclicks instead of over weeks and sometimes months. The Web makes networking much easier for political activists, as well as teenagers. Unfortunately, the progress and use of new tools by activists are now being matched by the efforts of dictatorships to prevent them from using those tools.
--Louarbou 9:32, February 26 2009 (CDT)
Source:
http://socweb.cis.mcmaster.ca/polisci/images/international%20relations.jpg
The impact of Twitter and Facebook on social movement in Iran and China
According to the article “Why Twitter Is the Medium of the Movement”? During Iran’s presidential election in 2009, the U.S state department asked Twitter to postpone a system upgrade. They wanted to make sure that Iranians can use Twitter to protest the presidential election. During the presidential election, people who protested on the street reported real-time news to twitter. However, the protests were not reported on the traditional media like TV due to the government’s control. The dissidents were suppressed by Iranian government. Iranian government tried to shut down the internet service to control speech, which led to a great of mount of tweets about the protest on-line. Interestingly, when Iranians were protesting the government, Chinese democracy activists supported Iranians’ protests over Twitter and face book. When Iranians government imported armored trucks from china to suppress protesters, Chinese democracy activists helps translate the news and spread the information to social network websites such as twitter and face book
Lutz, Meris argues in his paper "IRAN: Chinese Activists to Opposition” Chinese have similar situation with Iranian. People cannot express their views freely in China. All the traditional media are run by government. It is impossible to hear dissidents’ voice or even some news that Chinese government thought it would make them look bad, such as news about disasters due to government’s jerry built construction, News about corruptions of Chinese officers who hold high position and news about increasing events of people resort in violent to fight against different kinds of governments’ unequal treatments. The government even passes a law to punish unauthorized reporting of disasters with fines up to 100,000 Yuan. In this situation, Chinese activists hope to use internet to gather all the news that government suppresses and try to spread through social net work site such as twitter and face book. Twitter and face book provide a place where Activists can well document these records and let people know that the social environment and government’s regulation are not that good as government’s announce. Famous Chinese dissident writers Yu Jie say the best way for him to get his message out.
Twitter and face book become a best tool for social activist due to its mobility and its broadcast nature. Another reason social activists’ likes to use social networking site is that, it is easier way to stay connected with other activists, because in real life they are all under Chinese government’s long time surveillance. They might be limited to move and were put under house arrest. Social network provides a very good platform to get their message out of house detention and let other social activists know his recent news. Evidence shows that social network plays a very important role in a lot of protests activists in china. Even though Chinese government banned social net work site such as Face book and twitter, people still can get around government’s censorship system, great fire wall, to use social networking site. With the new media technology, Social activist’s situation is a little safer, because if government resorts in violent to socialists, they will report on social network sites on twitter or Face book. Social Net work plays a key role in Chinese social movement. [1]
-- Kai Wang 3:00pm 26 November 2010 (CDT)
The impact of Twitter and Podcast on politics in South Korea
Historical domination of media
The old media in South Korea has been dominated since the beginning of the Japanese colonial period in early twentieth century. Those who betrayed their country, and sold it to the invaders in order to obtain a newly given authority and of course wealth are the seeds of current miserable situation in South Korea. What those who were given authority and money first did was conquering all media under their control so that they could easily make people ignorant and untaught, and prevent them from being aware of what they did. The domination of media has been the main strategy for those who seized power for over the past century, and the current president, Lee Myung-bak has put his best effort on this domination since he has accomplished countless jobs for his self interest instead of the good of the country. The Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement which was rammed through the ratification by the ruling party under the order of the president Lee on November 22, 2011 is now considered as one of his biggest sales done for the protection of himself and his wealth, yet none of the truth has ever been reported by the media. As a result, the power and wealth were vested in only a few conservative media that conveyed reprocessed and sometimes fabricated information hiding the truth behind for the president Lee and also people in authority, and the rest are left unenlightened.
The rise of new media powered by information technology
However, the rise of new media such as social network system and internet broadcasting have become popular for the past few years, and among those many kinds of new media, Twitter and Podcast have played a great role in politics in South Korea recently. On one day in April 2011, a 68 minutes length recording was uploaded on the iTunes podcast. Its title is “Naneun Ggomsuda”[2]which can be translated into “I’m a petty-minded creep”, and it is usually called by the acronym “Naggomsu”. In this podcast, four guys who are a head of the internet press, a former lawmaker, a current journalist, and a former radio show host gather together, and reveal what the current president is doing for his own profit. Their voices are sarcastic and filled with satire, but what they tell is fully based on the facts that they investigated. Most of all, it gives a lot of fun while warning people about our current president. It has become the most downloaded podcast in the News and politics category in the U.S., and places among one of tenth most downloaded contents overall. New York Times published the article about this show on Nov. 1, and the American podcast “Joe Rogan Experience” has dealt with this show recently.[Youtube Video]
Twitter and Special Election for Seoul Mayor
While the podcast has enlightened people and fulfilled the needs at the truth, Twitter has done a great job for the mayoral by-election. There has been a debate about free lunch program for the elementary school students between the Seoul Metropolitan office of education and the City Council of Seoul. The former mayor of Seoul, Oh Se-hoon, who was the member of the ruling Republican Party, opposed to the free lunch program, so he held a referendum and staked his mayoralty on it. Mr. Oh, of course, lost the referendum, and was resigned from the mayor. Mr. Oh spent about $20 million for the meaningless referendum instead of feeding lunch to the kids, and this caused a public outrage. After the Oh’s resignation, the special mayoral election had to be held. The governing Republican Party put up Na Kyung-won as a candidate, but that was not the issue. Ahn Cheol-soo who is a business person and a professor has earned the great popularity from the young people, and his life and personality have been respected and pursued as a role model by many people. He was furious about what Mr. Oh had done, and began considering to be a candidate. After pondering for a couple of days, he decided not to be a candidate; instead he decided to support Park Won-soon who was an independent candidate from the civil group. This decision was astonishing because the rating of Mr. Ahn was about 50% and it was the highest at that time while Mr. Park only had 5% of the rating. It seemed hardly possible for Mr. Park to win the election since Ms. Na from the Republican Party showed about 40% of the rating. However, Twitterians and Bloggers began taking an action. At first, Ms. Na raised a lot of negative issues about Mr. Park that lacked a factual basis. Many people of the old media generation were affected by this strategy since all TV and newspapers talked about these issues without providing a single piece of a fact. People who use internet daily felt sick of this strategy that Republicans have kept doing for the past 30 years, so they began creating a material that carries the facts about both candidate, and funnily enough, Ms. Na had hidden a lot of unlawful activities done for her profit beyond her back while none of the doubts that she aroused over Mr. Park turned out to be true. Twitterians shared every single piece of information that would help Mr. Park, and encouraged people to vote. The podcast “Naneun Ggomsuda” also helped to reveal the truth, but never tried to create any falsification because all the facts were enough to support Mr. Park. “Naggomsu” and Twitter created such a huge synergy, and Mr. Park finally won the election with 7% margin of difference. On the day of the election, he claimed that the victory was derived from citizens, and ascribed the honor to them.
--Jun 2:21, 1 December 2011 (EDT)
New Political Communication Units : Web 2.0 Politics
After Barack Obama won the election, the webpage (www.change.gov) was created. On the website, there is a menu called “Open Government,” which collects public opinion about government strategies. In addition, change.gov posts job openings. Since Obama's election, the US government has been rebuilding the website in hopes of strengthening relations with the public. John F Kennedy changed politics by using the TV to communicate with the masses; Obama is trying to change politics by using new media, like the internet, to communicate with the masses. Obama spread Web 2.0 politics”.
Web 2.0 Politics
It is the new way of politics by using the characteristics of Web 2.0, which are “participate, share, open”. The major tools of Web 2.0 Politics are blogs and UCC on the internet. Web 2.0 Politics is supposed to be an absolute open network. Web 2.0 politics can have communication both ways, which encourages the public to participate in politics and share their opinions so that government can strengthen the public’s sense of unity.
Barack Obama's first internet video communication had been distributed by Youtube. It will be distributed weekly.Weekly Address
--Jongkyung Kim 11:15, 15 December 2008 (CDT)
YouTube
YouTube also plays a big part in politics in the US. It is common knowledge that young people in America are just not involved in politics. They’re unaware of who their representatives are and what they stand for. By using YouTube as a way to reach the younger generation, the 2008 election had the largest young voter numbers ever. Popular campaigns such as “Vote or Die” and “Smackdown Your Vote!” quickly spread through the site [3]. However, the negative aspect of this is that trashing on the politician running for office also quickly spread. In some cases, this overshadowed anything and everything the individual was able to accomplish throughout their career.
The Pros of New Media in Politics
The use of new media in the political environment has been controversial. There are several reasons why new media should be used in politics. Some pros of new media in politics are:
- 1. New media allow political figures to communicate to large groups of people.
- 2. New media gives the people the ability to give their opinions on political figures. For example the famous Obama Girl made a YouTube video about her crush Barack Obama.
- 3. It is much less expensive to use new media than traditional media which allows political figures with the inadequate funds to advertise themselves more often.
- 4. It also allows political figures to communicate with specific groups of people. For example President Obama when he was senator was able to use Linkedin to ask "How can the next president better help small business and entrepreneurs thrive?" When Web 2.0 meets Politics.
The Cons of New Media in Politics
Though there are many pros for using new media in the political environment new media have also affected politics negatively. Some cons of new media in politics are:
- 1. New media allows users to not fully represent political figures so that their candidate choice get more votes.
- 2. Users of new media could post false information about political figures or political agendas.
- 3. Because new media uses the internet and the internet is global politics in one country could have an affect on politics in another country.
- 4. Political figures' personal lives are on display each time scandal is revealed.Eliot Spitzer
-- Noel Salcedo
Partisan Pundits in New Media
Partisan Pundits in New Media
--DavidFang 11:07, 30 October 2008 (CDT)
Source
- ↑ "Twitter a key tool for China dissident writer". Zeenews. 9 Jul. 2010 <http://www.zeenews.com/news639653.html>
- ↑ CHOE, SANG-HUN. (November 1, 2011) "By Lampooning Leaders, Talk Show Channels Young People’s Anger." The NY Times. 1 Nov. 2011 <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/02/world/asia/lampooning-leaders-talk-show-channels-young-peoples-anger-in-south-korea.html?pagewanted=all>
- ↑ Stelter, Brian. "Now on YouTube, Local News." The NY Times. 2 Aug. 2009 Web. <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/03/business/media/03youtube.html?_r=1>
