Digital Political PR Campaigns: The U.S. Election

The changing media environment, including new technologies, media platforms, and ways of communicating has led to a high unpredictability in media audiences. The audience is no longer confined to the regulation of broadcast media and media is no longer confined to consumption in domestic environments. In this post-broadcast era, politicians have had to adapt their methods of campaigning in order to reach their audience on different media platforms. 

The 2012 US election was also known as one of the first “digital campaigns”, as Barrack Obama and Mitt Romney used social media as a campaign tool. Both used digital media in a way that enhanced broadcast and print media, rather than completely replacing it for the online platform. The election became one of the most expensive in American history due to the saturation of advertising on broadcast television. One of the greatest benefits of using social media for advertising and public relations was that it came at no great cost to the candidates.

Digital media also opened the doors to public relations tactics that had not previously been used before. For example, Barrack Obama used the video sharing website, YouTube to broadcast a mini-documentary outlining what he did in his previous term of government and what he would do if elected for a second term. Candidates also used YouTube as a place where people could replay the advertisements that were already being broadcasted on television.

Online media has many advantages for candidates which wouldn't have been possible in the age of traditional media. It provides candidates with an instantaneous attack on issues and gaffes as soon as they arise. It doesn't rely on the mainstream media to portray a certain image of the candidate or produce stories in their favour. Instead, candidates are able to cut out the middle man and communicate directly with the audience (Jericho, 2012) . Digital media provides an effective outlet for candidates to rally volunteers, get donations, and seek out more supporters. Throughout the campaign, both candidates would often encourage followers to “like”, “share” or “retweet” their posts.

One of the main benefits of traditional media is that it can be tailored in order to reach the target audience. For example, broadcast media is able to target specific demographics based on time slots and television programs. The 2012 presidential election was one of the first campaigns which looked at specifically targeting audiences based on algorithms and user information. Mitt Romney invested money to have his advertisements promoted on Twitter, so that if users were to search for key words to do with the election, his name would appear at the top of the list. Romney also promoted his hashtags so that they would automatically appear in the “trending” section on Twitter.

The post-broadcast era has seen many changes and developments for public relations campaigns in politics. Audiences are consuming media in different ways and tactics need to evolve in order to suit the new online platform. Digital media provides a relatively cost-free method of advertising in comparison to traditional media, however lacks the ability to target specific demographics. New developments in social media will allow for algorithms to target specific audiences in order for politicians to directly target the demographics they need. Political campaigning on social media is a relatively new concept but seems to be one with growing potential.

References

Jericho, G. (2012). Journalists all a Twitter. In The Rise of the Fifth Estate: social media and blogging in Australian politics (pp.222-267). Retrieved from http://reader.eblib.com.au.ezproxy1.canberra.edu.au/(S(xpacnpme5sv3hazhooar1sk4))/Reader.aspxp=981484&o=103&u=3c0BatEnVb3UB3x2a81Jrw%3d%3d&t=1384514787&h=005BCB03D521EABB31C2E5A62FF305905A4E428C&s=10744504&ut=281&pg=222&r=img&c=-1&pat=n

Social Media, Privacy, and Publicity

We live in a society which embraces the use of digital technologies and social networking sites with little knowledge of the implications that they might have on our lives. Social networking sites such as Facebook are becoming increasingly popular worldwide with upwards of 1.11billion users. Websites such as Facebook allow for users to: connect with friends and family, share photos, create a micro-blog, instant messaging, private message, schedule events, use apps, play games, and use many other features. A person’s profile provides information such as name, age, date of birth, place of birth, city of residence, religion, education, job, relationships, etc. All of this information is being shared on a public platform.

With the amount of information we share about ourselves on social media, it comes as no surprise that there are rising concerns over issues of privacy. There is no challenging the idea that our private lives are becoming increasingly more public. People often assume that because we publicise the information we want shared on social media, we conceal the information we believe to be private. However, Jurgensen and Rey (2012) have a different way of looking at it. They believe that privacy and publicity go hand-in-hand and are in fact, not separated like we previously thought. Unlike previous assumptions about privacy, they see privacy as withholding certain information from the world rather than secrecy where people want to withhold information from everyone.

The “revealing” and “concealing” part of online culture as described by Jurgensen and Rey (2012) is a way for users to create their identities and portray their idealised self to others. The small amounts of a person’s identity and information which is being shared with the public on social media is used to spark interest in the person’s “unseen” self. The part of the self that isn't seen on social media becomes just as important as what is shown. For example, in celebrity culture, fewer questions are asked if more information is given. This creates more privacy as they only reveal what they want to about the situation. However, when a person conceals their information, suspicions are raised, and more questions are asked.

In order to understand privacy on social media, one must asked themselves a series of questions about what they are publicising. These questions should include: what information is being collected, how is that information being used, who is collecting this information, and who are they're sharing the information with. For example, data from retail loyalty cards have information such as your address, date of birth, records of the products you bought and the shops you bought them from. This provides retailers with valuable information which helps them to target products specifically to you and your needs.

The recent development of digital technologies means that we are yet to fully explore the repercussions of sharing personal information on social media. However, there is growing evidence to suggest that the information collected from our social networking profiles provides more information than we think. It has the ability to recreate a timeline of events, specific to our lives (e.g. new job) and general information (e.g. weather). People are only now realising that this information can be accessed by people other than our friends and families, including: employers, businesses, government, media, and people we don’t even know. Therefore, it is becoming increasingly evident that we need to reflect on the information we are sharing and who we are sharing it with.

Social Networking and Online Identities

Identity can be defined as the cognitive and affective understanding of ourselves. With social networking and involvement in online communities becoming increasingly popular, there seems to be more interest in how people create or re-create their identities online. There are many ways in which people express their personal identity. Often the reflection of identity comes down to certain characteristics like clothes, taste in music, sexual orientation, race, religion, and any other affiliation, activities or interests. However, if you take away the physical person then it becomes more challenging to express these individual traits and portrayal of identity.

Young people are one of the primary users of online networking sites, spending approximately 50 minutes per day on the internet. Two of the most popular activities online were participation on personal homepages, such as Facebook, and on blogs. Both of these activities involve portraying to a public audience an image of their identities. For young people, creating and networking online content is becoming an important part of managing identity, lifestyle and social relations. It is throughout this period of their lives that they start to develop goals, opinions, attitudes and other integral traits. 

A large portion of what makes up an online identity is what content is on display and who can see it. Even though social networking has allowed for users to interact with others across the globe, majority of people are only friends with those that are local to them. Most young people have contacts which they have previous associations with (such as study or work) and there is little interest in befriending strangers. There have been on-going criticisms about the people that can see the content in a person's post. Although majority of the time these people are known to them in some form, the "MySpace" generation has been accused of having no sense of shame or privacy.

There are some factors of constructing an online identity which are similar to reality. On the surface level, personal homepages allow room for information such as religion, hometown, place of residence, work, previous employers, education, and so on. However beyond those things, people are also faced with making decisions that are difficult offline as well as online. For example, whom to trust, what information to reveal, reciprocity, when to express emotion, etc. 

Online networks are used by young people as a way to develop a sense of identity. The idea of the self is often constituted through the interaction with others and largely how others view us. Online, people are continuously developing their sense of self through communication. For example in a study of online dating profiles, they found that the sites were popular because they allowed people to explore possible selves and have that identity validated. Often these people were in a place in their lives where one phase of their life was ending and another was beginning (e.g. after divorce). This period of time created self-reflection and a re-creation of identity.

How Networked Media Culture Enhances Online Communication

In this day and age, the internet as we know it is becoming increasingly prevalent in our society. The internet (or Web 2.0) is used on a daily basis as part of our lives. It is for this reason that communication in its most basic form has been transformed in a way to suit the online world. As a result of digital media, how we communicate is constantly evolving.

The internet differs from traditional media in many ways. Before the internet, traditional media such as the radio, television and newspaper informed us of any news. We used to communicate through face-to-face interaction, the telephone, postal mail, fax, and telegram. Although new technology has not completely erased these previous methods of communicating and receiving information, it has opened the door to an influx of new ways to communicate. These include: email, instant messaging, chat rooms, blogging, social media, and data sharing. The internet also differs in comparison to traditional media in that it is interactive interface. It includes a range of text, images, video and audio (multimedia) on almost every page. 

Traditionally, the use of media has been used as a source of one-way communication. That is, information is sent from the “sender” to the “receiver” without any further interaction. However, the internet does not always follow this one-way communication model. Users now have the ability to leave comments, share the post with friends or the public, and create their own content. This creates an interaction between the sender and the receiver where the sender can receive feedback and communicate back-and-forth. This model is called the two-way communication model.

One-way communication model

Two-way communication model

Political campaigning is just one area that has been changed by online communication. Stereotypically the method of political campaigning has been to rely heavily on coverage in traditional media. This means that the image being portrayed, what news is included or excluded, and the opinions that are being created, are all controlled by the media. The 2008 US election was the first real “online” election which was said to embrace social networking sites, multimedia and other digital media outlets. 

Throughout the 2008 election, Barack Obama used social media and his website to produce a mass of supporters and financial donators. He took advantage of these media sites for free advertising, encouraged his followers to share his posts (thus creating a broader audience scope) and could rally supporters like never before. Using social media was effective as people chose to consume the material rather than have the campaign interrupt their television show.

However social media has not replaced traditional media completely. The roles of online networks are to enhance the agenda in the traditional media (rather than replace it) as well as create discussion and hype. For example, this video below outlines how social media is said to create a public sphere where people can voice opinions, discuss ideas and in-turn increase democracy. 

The internet is able to provide certain tools which enhance online communication. Hyperlinks for example, are a mechanism originally designed as an online referencing system but inadvertently changed how we access information. Unlike traditional citations where a person would need to invest time in order to locate documents, hyperlinks can instantaneously direct users to the source. The use of hyperlinks has since developed into much more. They are now used as an algorithm by search engines to determine the popularity of a site. Hyperlinks have changed the way in which people navigate online by transporting their attention from place-to-place, instantaneous access to information, and a way for search engines to determine the websites popularity.