World Wide Webbed: The Obama Campaign’s masterful Use of the Internet
Even before taking office, the newly-elected Obama administration began drawing on internet tools to lay the groundwork for an attempt to restructure the US health care system. They launched a new website, Change.gov, and in December 2008 Obama’s point person on health care launched an effort to create political momentum in a conference call with 1,000 invited supporters culled from 10,000 who had expressed interest in health issues. First they posted a simple 63-second video on Change.gov, posing the question, ‘what worries you most about the health care system in our country?’ That triggered 3,700 responses, including personal tales of medical hardship. The subsequent cyber-conversation was interactive, allowing individuals to reply to one another and rate responses with thumbs up or down. The Obama technology gurus then built a ‘word cloud’ showing the 100 most frequently used words in the responses.
That was the first attempt by the Obama team to harness its vast and sophisticated grassroots network to shape public policy. Some see this as a potentially new force in American politics. ‘When Congress refuses to go with his agenda, it’s not going to be just the President’ they oppose, says Mr. Trippi. It will be the President and his huge virtual network of citizens.
‘Just like Kennedy brought in the television presidency, I think we are about to see the first wired, connected, networked presidency’, says Mr. Trippi.
Reed Hundt, former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and Obama technology advisor, says that the forthcoming administration will have a commitment ‘to have our entire democracy include everyone and through these tools [like Twitter and text messaging] be able to share information in a rapid way and have ideas shared from below.’
‘This is the beginning of the reinvention of what the presidency in the 21st century could be’, said Simon Rosenberg, president of the Washington DC based think tank NDN. ‘This will reinvent the relationship of the President to the American people in a way we probably have not seen since FDR’s use of radio in the 1930s.’
While Barack Obama has generated much excitement about the future of a wired democracy, some are wondering whether his success can be replicated, or if this was a once in a generation phenomena. The success of the Obama campaign was driven in part by the collision of two unique phenomena: first, the charisma of the candidate himself with a message that appealed especially to young people, and second, a technology that young people have mastered more than anyone else. The millennials are more wired into the new media and online social networks than any other demographic, and Obama tapped into that youthful sense of hope and optimism.
‘Barack Obama is three things you want in a brand’, says Keith Reinhard of DDB Worldwide, a global advertising agency. ‘New, different, and attractive. That is as good as it gets.’
Or perhaps the Obama story is partly about the success of a new form of ‘leadership’. Obama, through his inclusive website and his lofty rhetoric, reinforced the notion that everyone is included and that his movement is actually a conversation to which everyone is invited.
Some are saying that Obama epitomises a new way of thinking called ‘adaptive leadership’ – while a boss puts forward a specific plan to be implemented and everyone is expected to follow, an adaptive leader works with constituents to devise a plan together. He gets people to do things on their own, through inspiration, respect, and trust. Obama has tapped into this vein by inviting voters in with his ‘Yes We Can’ slogan. ‘Change will not come if we wait for some other person’, he said on Super Tuesday, ‘or if we wait for some other time… We are the hope of the future.’
Beyond all the hype about the messenger, the message or their methods, what is clear is that the ongoing development of internet tools is having a tremendous impact on political campaigns. In a sense, the internet has become a ‘steroid’ of politics – a candidate does not dare not use it, and use it well, because if your opponent is able to marshal its potential, you will be up against a mobilised, well-financed army. No doubt candidates in future elections will be using internet tools that have not yet even been developed. And when the right candidate with the right message comes along, tapping into those internet tools will allow that campaign to become a powerful political force.
