Winning a political campaign in 140 characters or less… easy right?

So when you think of Twitter you probably wouldn’t say it is a blogging platform, however, it is actually considered a form of micro blogging. More specifically Twitter is considered, ‘a derivative or miniature version of the regular blog' (Hallvard and Larsson, 2011 p.730).  For the average individual we use Twitter to keep in touch with people, including the famous, and current affairs whilst sharing our thoughts in 140 characters or less…of course.  But I wanted to delve deeper into the use of Twitter for political campaigns. Vaccari (cited in Hallvard and Larsson p. 732) states that ‘many political actors appear to struggle with their presence on the Internet’, well, until one man… Obama.

Obama’s 2008 political campaign, which focused heavily on Facebook, changed the landscape of political campaigning forever.  Obama and his team used social media to engage with not only supporters, but also the wider public and receive donations.  But in 2012, as stated by his campaign manager Jim Messina, ‘our efforts on the ground and on technology will make 2008 look prehistoric’ (telegraph 2012). And of course he is correct because in 2008 Twitter was still in its infancy. Obama’s Twitter account provided links to their campaign, about Obama himself, various news articles, reminders and daily activities. In one way, you almost feel like your involved! Obama currently has over 36 million followers on Twitter and tweets regularly (whether its tweets by himself or his team is besides the point). Campaign managers were able to follow election tweets with the hashtag #Obama2012.

Furthermore, Castells (cited in Hallvard and Larsson p.730) states ‘micro blogging has the potential to increase political participation among previously unengaged citizens’, for example, youths. This is particularly true in Obama’s use of social media, specifically Twitter as it was initially done to target a younger audience.

Whilst researching this topic I found this article (link here), which explains the incredible power of his Twitter campaign. In 2012, when Obama was re-elected he posted the above picture with the comment ‘Four more years’. This tweet actually became the most popular tweet ever! It had 507,745 retweets and was favorited 173,028 times. Not to mention the picture posted to his Facebook was shared by ten of thousands of people. Similarly, the announcement of his victory sent individuals into overdrive with 327,452 election related tweets per minute. 

I also want to note, that not only does Barack Obama have a verified Twitter account his team has also employed a 50-state online campaign. Each office has both a Facebook page and Twitter accounts.

Now I am aware that in the Hallvard and Larsson’s reading did mention Barack Obama’s Twitter campaign, I really wanted to discuss it further because I truly find the whole online campaign fascinating. Sometimes I think it’s a little weird that Twitter is used for politics and that on one hand we can be following Obama or Kevin Rudd and on the other we are following someone like Amanda Bynes for pure entertainment (let’s just say she may have gone to far!)

Until next time….

References:

Olorf Larsson, A. and Moe, H., 2011 ‘Studying political microblogging: Twitter users in the 2010 Swedish election campaign’ New Media and Society, vol. 14, no.5 pp.729-747.

Telegraph 2012, 'Barack Obama's 'for more years' tweet most popular ever' retrieved 30 August 2013, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/us-election/9660533/Barack-Obamas-four-more-years-tweet-most-popular-ever.html

Image:

Ortiz E, Osterhout 2012, 'Four more years: 'President Obama's tweet as final results come in on Election Day the most popular of all time', retrieved 30 August 2013, http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/celebrities-tweet-vote-president-article-1.1197761