Hello, world and welcome to my blog!
As you might have guessed from the title, everything I will be posting on here will be connected to the digitalizing of government and politics.
In simpler words, I will be talking about the impact that social media has had on political campaigns and the implementation of different governmental policies through different examples from our daily life. One of the key political events that I will be covering will be the Presidential Vote in the United States and the inauguration of the winning candidate in January. The battle will surely be tough as both Hillary and Trump have a large following in real life and on social media.
A brief history
In order to dive into my topic, I wanted to do some background research on some of the first instances where social media was used as a tool to spark political engagement among the masses.
The first politician credited with using the Internet for raising money for his campaign is democrat Howard Dean. After serving for over ten years as the Governor of Vermont, Dean decided to run for president in the 2004 US elections. He was the first candidate to have a campaign website and although he had a huge online following, he ended up loosing the election. One of the platforms that he used in order to engage his followers was called Meetup. Through it he would organize meetups where like-minded individuals could learn more about his campaign.
In one of their articles, POLITICO magazine called Howard Dean “The Father of all Web campaigns.” But the true genius behind his campaign was Joe Trippi. He helped pioneer online campaigning and is now one of the most famous “veteran media masters” in the world.
The first time we met Obama
With the development of technology and the creation of social media platforms like Facebook, sharing one’s political views with others became even easier. The presidential candidates in the 2008 election were amongst some of the few global leaders who were successfully leading their campaigns online. Barack Obama’s camapign is one of the most memorable in US election history as it utilized all the main social media channels including Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube.
By 2012, candidates were using social media to not only run their campaigns but to also announce them in the first place. Obama, for example, announced his re-election through a video, which his team sent out to over 13 million of his followers via email. Mit Romney did something similar by tweeting out his candidacy. This shows how important social media had become for politics and political engagement.
The future of politics is now
This leads us to 2016 and the most anticipated election season ever. Personally, I think that social media today is not only following and reporting on the election but it is also driving it. This makes the image that the candidates are trying to reflect through different platforms crucial for the outcome of the voting.
As the election comes to a close, we will carefully be exploring the way in which both Clinton and Trump are executing their online accounts. I will be sharing articles and materials on the topic on my Facebook and Twitter and writing a few blog posts as well.
So, stay tuned for more and join me on this journey into exploring the digital side of politics!
– Plami x
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