The 'Online Campaign' -- Election 2.008 -- Rolls On

By: Greg Mitchell The nomination of an African-American for president by a major party -- and the Republicans' first naming of a woman for the ticket -- are not the only historic aspect of the 2008 election campaign in the United States. This is also the first campaign strongly shaped ? even, at times, dominated ? by the new media, from viral videos and blog reports that "go mainstream" to profoundly successful online fundraising.

Just in the past week we have seen the first vetting of a candidate for vice president aided, or even led, by the Web. And the John Edwards' affair scandal? How many people actually read about it in the National Enquirer compared to the tens of millions who followed the revelations on the weekly's Web site -- and the other news sites and blogs that covered it?

In today's New York Times, Mark Leibovich observes, regarding the Palin pick, that it was "the first real convention controversy to unfold in the age of real-time blogging, YouTube, Twittering, or whatever it is they?re calling this age these days. It seemed like no detail of these proceedings was deemed to trivial for dissemination, somewhere."



James Poniewozik, the Time magazine columnist, observed in late June that the old media are rapidly losing their "authority" and influence with the mass market. "It's too simple to say that the new media are killing off the old media," he declared, while highlighting a pair of influential scoops at The Huffington Post by a hitherto unknown "citizen journalist" named Mayhill Fowler. "What's happening instead is a kind of melding of roles. Old and new media are still symbiotic, but it's getting hard to tell who's the rhino and who's the tickbird."

Simply put: The rules of the game have been changed forever ? by technology. "It's politics at the speed of Internet," says Dan Carol, a strategist for Obama who got his start on Bill Clinton's 1992 team. This has brought us stirring new ways to tune in and participate, along with diversions ranging from "Obama Girl" to Mitt Romney's "Mitthead Blogroll." And it likely was the first primary campaign where a question at a presidential debate was put forward by a melting snowman. This came during one of the You Tube debates (the issue, of course, was global warming).

This year's campaign, in fact, has been dubbed the "YouTube Election" or "The Facebook Election." But that may be too reductive. James Rainey, media reporter for the Los Angeles Times, declared recently that there is a "new-media revolution that is remaking presidential campaigns. Online videos can dominate the evening TV news. Or an unpublished novelist with absolutely no journalism training can alter the national debate" ? a reference to Mayhill Fowler.

A Pew survey released in mid-June revealed that 46% of all Americans have used the Web or e-mail to "get news about the campaign, share their views, and mobilize others." Almost 20% go online every week to do something related to the campaign. This is three times the 2004 rate ? and the hottest part of the campaign is yet to come. More than one in three say they have watched campaign videos. Some 13 million have watched the "Yes We Can" spot starring Scarlett Johansson, John Legend, and other stars. Fully 10% report that they use social networking sites to get involved.

Finally, 6% have already made political contributions online ? already three times the 2004 total for that entire campaign.

Of course, the old media are far from dead but often in reactive mode. Case in point: In June, the Obama "terrorist fist bump" went from viral to The View in just three days. Fortunately, the candidate was able to laugh it off, which was certainly not the case after the Rev. Wright videos went viral. In fact, after wrapping up the nomination in June, the Obama campaign launched an extensive Web site (FightTheSmears.com) devoted solely to shooting down viral rumors and e-mail innuendo. Among the first targets: reports of a shocking video that allegedly showed Michelle Obama railing against "whitey." Surely "cyber-snark" is here to stay.

All the top newspapers now choose to break campaign news not merely on their home page but on (multiple) campaign blogs fed by longtime reporters, such as Kit Seelye at The New York Times. Imitation of the blogosphere has become a sincere form of flattery ? or, at times, desperation. And it's not necessarily a big step forward. Rainey in the Los Angeles Times recently pointed out: "Online film has lowered the price of entry to political discourse and pumped new life into an ossified communications universe." But he hastened to add: "That doesn't mean it's brought greater accuracy or fairness." Jim Rutenberg in the New York Times recently observed, "This year, the development of cheap new editing programs and fast video distribution through sites like YouTube has broken down the barriers, empowering a new generation of largely unregulated political warriors who can affect the campaign dialogue faster and with more impact than the traditional opposition research shops."

In any event, a candidate now must generate not merely broad appeal, but broadband appeal. The "pod" people are taking over, but not quite in the way Invasion of the Body Snatchers imagined it.