According to Mike Sachoff from Webpronews.com, the Internet is playing a bigger role in the American Politics, where 73% of American netizens went online in 2010 to get information and news about the elections and to discuss the event. This group of Americans consisted of 54% of all voters.
According to Trippi, who is an American Democratic campaign worker and consultant, Obama's Youtube spots gathered an aggregate of 14.5 million viewing hours.
President Obama was able to foster ties with his people because he embraced the Internet. He used Twitter, Youtube, and a website to broadcast his trips to the various states online.
He has about 7.5million followers on Twitter! With one tweet, he can reach that many people!
For his website, he seems to address the viewers on a weekly basis which I think really helps the people get to know him.
(click the links to go to his sites!)
He shared his journey with the people, and he was extremely responsive to their tweets. His contender, Hillary Clinton, also had a twitter account, and apparently comparisons were made to how responsive they were to evaluate how interested and engaging they were with the public.
People from all over the world were also able to catch the news on the election and get updated on a minute by minute basis which was really great! I think this is really awesome and beneficial for Americans who were out of town during the elections, such as our beloved UB lecturers in Singapore, because it not only helps them feel like they are part of the election but also involved as well. They can discuss about it with their friends and families.
I think that the government's use of the Internet to introduce campaigns and interact with the common people will keep increasing, but this can be both good and bad. For the downside, people may lose more privacy if the government continues their warrantless wiretapping for surveillance.
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