Apr
26
New media for 2008 U.S. presidential election
April 26, 2008 | | Leave a Comment
Kitty XIE Rui (10)
In previous U.S presidential race, candidates mainly expressed their political programme or introduce themselves through traditional media. While in 2008, all candidates have largely utilized the new media to approach voters. Through the internet, the candidates are leaving the old-way street into a modern interactive playground with the public. In this essay, I intend to explore this phenomenon from diverse perspective.
Firstly, let us have a look at several new methods of information transfer which are adopted in 2008 U.S presidential election.
The candidates’ home pages
All candidates manage to extend their reach to new groups of supporters and donors through their home pages. For example, Mrs. Clinton has considerable success in generating internet cash since almost running out of money earlier 2008 when many of her tradition high-value donors had given the legal maximum of $2,300 to the primary campaign. Raising money on the Internet is regarded as the most inexpensive method, compared to convention methods such as events, telemarketing and direct mail campaigns.
The candidates’ blog
In 2004 U.S. presidential election, only one candidate Howard Dean set up his own election blog. That much-publicized online method helped Howard Dean attract much young voters. While in 2008, nearly all candidates set up their election blogs and the public can put comments on the article or video of those blogs. In addition, some candidates create a section for links to private blogs related to them, John McCain 2008 for example.
The portal with interactive function
A great number of famous portals set up on-line interactive sections for 2008 U.S. presidential election, which aim to provide a place for people who are interested in the same candidate or similar topic to exchange their opinions.
The most popular video sharing website YouTube has set up a channel “You choose ‘08” for U.S. presidential election. It is regarded as an outlet for advertising their candidacies by candidates. Moreover, voters can view candidate statements and make video supporting (or opposing) presidential candidates. Some commentators even criticize the presidential candidate’s YouTube video by making their own video. They think YouTube is a medium to get their voice heard.
Actually, new media plays an important role in 2008 U.S. presidential election. It has overtaken the traditional media to become the dominant method to issue the news, run the campaign, communicate with the public and attract votes.
Nowadays, candidates’ websites are the major source of information on election news. For example, 2 to 3 pieces of news are issued on Hillary’s election website every day.
Moreover, those election websites have set up the News & Media channel to issue their own press release or reproduce the related news from mainstream media. It is believed that reprinting the news from mainstream media is helpful to attract young voters because the youth regard the internet as their first choice to get information rather than traditional print, radio and television media. Most articles are neutral and objective though they are selected by editors and favorable to candidate.
Finally, in order to approach an increasing number of Hispanic Americans, Hillary and Obama both create the Spanish version of their election websites. The multiple choices of language give the website an advantage over the tradition media.
