Response Week 9

I asked:
In Obama’s political campaign he utilized Social Media outlets to the best of his capabilities and it was considered a groundbreaking technique. Is this just new to The United States, or has this ever been done anywhere before?

As we learned in class, Segolene Royal, a French Politician tried to make a name for herself on the Internet, and this was a first among political campaigns as well. However, after I have looked over her website it is very plain and basic in comparison to Obama’s approach. Royal’s campaign was before President Obama’s, and while it was a new approach it wasn’t very interactive. Royal’s website had a few videos and some updates but that was about it. She did not utilize the Internet the way that she could have. As far as my Internet research on this topic goes, I haven’t seen any other campaigns as new and groundbreaking as President Obama’s was. That having been said, there are many new technologies that Obama took advantage of that others, such as McCain, failed to do. The videos we watched in class were a prime example of how technology hurt McCain as much as it helped Obama. In the first video McCain shows how strongly he feels on Republican issues, even calling himself a “True Conservative.” The other ad claimed he was an “Original Maverick.” These two conflicting viewpoints that he put out confused people. His strategy was to appeal to everyone, but in doing so he turned people off because they did not know what to believe about him. Before the Internet Age this tactic may have worked but in our common Internet Age, it backfired on him. People could view his conservitive ad and then view his maverick ad one after another. These ads were clearly not meant for everybody, yet many people saw both, discrediting McCain’s word. The mere fact that McCain’s campaign was not Internet savvy may have been the reason he did not win the 2008 elections.