“The first advertisement for the 2008 presidential candidates launched on December 27, 2006, almost two years before election day. Instead of airing on network news or during a holiday special, the advertisement titled, Tomorrow Begins Today, announced John Edwards’ candidacy for president online. It first reached the eyes of hundreds of thousands of viewers on the video sharing site youtube.com” D.W Johnson’s Campaigning for President: Strategies and Tactics, New Voices and New Techniques – The Online Revolution.
It is not a secret that technology has evolved and will continue evolving in the future. Nowadays, it is increasingly becoming more and more common for politicians to use social media as a way of influencing the public, particularly within the western world, aimed at a wider and younger audience.
We all know that social media is becoming the hip way of communicating to the public. It could be seen as an effective way of reaching a younger audience. The belief was that a YouTube presence was essential if a candidate wanted to be noticed and admired by younger voters. But what about their current target audience? Old...er people? I guess they too are catching on the YouTube phenomenon.
YouTube is a risky medium to utilise as produsers may use the clip and manipulate the candidacy’s video (although sometimes very funny, usually is it used to ridicule the politician and make them look stupid). That is not the only way candidates have been mocked. Comedian, Tina Fey, actually impersonated former potential vice president, Sarah Palin and made her look stupid. Some say, Fey’s performance ruined any chance of Palin ever becoming a serious politician. Fey’s clip attracted more hits than Palin’s ever did.
“…all media either space-bind or time-bind – make communication easier across space or distance…” Paul Levinson’s New New Media, suggests ‘how new technologies continue to facilitate extensions usually across space or time, not both… but new new media are both space-binding and time-binding, due to the speed (across space) and retrievability (across time) of any formation conveyed on the Web’.
“Jerome Armstrong...coined the term netroots in 2002, to describe the growing community of people who became politically active through online interaction.” Winograd, Morley Hais, and Michael D’s Millenial Makeover: Myspace, YouTube and the Future of American Politics.
At this point in my life, I know I’m still not interested in politics even if they are online now. So they need to find a better way to grab my attention. Brad Pitt maybe?
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