Introduction
Nowadays, there are many new communication technologies were used in our daily life. Telephone, cell phone and the Internet, these new technologies developed the society and helped people to communicate with each other more and more. After 2000, there is no doubt that it is an Internet Century. Almost everyone around me use phones, cell phones and the Internet. These new technologies especially the Internet not only played an important role in communication, but also affected people and their life in all aspects. Recently, Barack Hussein Obama II was elected the 44th President of the United States. On the 2008 presidential campaign, he adopted using new communication technologies on the Internet such as Facebook, MySpace and Youtube to gain more votes. This assignment will mainly illustrate how Facebook, MySpace, and Youtube affect the president election of United States.
Facebook
Facebook as a social utility was first introduced on February 4, 2004. It is a free-access website for everyone to join on the Internet (Obama plugs into a political Facebook.). People may join networks categorized by region, college, and company and the interaction with other people (Obama and the Facebook Effect). However, the most user of Facebook are students from college (Pell, A.), they are absolutely the most valuable customers to the market. Students are precisely in surfing on the Internet and full of passion to participate the society (Westlake, E., 2008).
On Obama’s Facebook website (http://www.facebook.com/barackobama), there are over 3427551 supporters which is more than 593839 of John’s. According to Fraser, Matthew, and Soumitra Dutta, “He is also a natural Facebook politician. On his Facebook profile, which featured his "Our Moment Is Now" motto, Obama named his favourite musicians as Miles Davis, Stevie Wonder and Bob Dylan and listed his pastimes as basketball, writing and "loafing w/kids" (note the hip short-hand to appeal to young voters). The 72-year-old John McCain, by contrast, never managed to connect on Facebook. He gave one of his pastimes as "fishing" and listed Letters From Iwo Jima among his favourite movies. McCain even got "punked" by a Facebook prankster who posted a phony policy announcement on McCain's online profile: "Dear supporters, today I announce that I have reversed my position and come out in flail support of gay marriage ... particularly marriage between two passionate females."
“Let's look at the statistical results. Obama counted more than 2 million American supporters on Facebook, while McCain had just over 600,000. On the micro-blogging platform Twitter, Obama could count on more than 112,000 supporters "tweeting" to get him elected. McCain, for his part, had only 4,600 followers.”
MySpace
Unlike join a Facebook needs a valid E-mail address, MySpace provides blogs, music, video and groups for adults and teenagers who have to submit their own networks. In 2006, MySpace was the most popular social website while it was overtaken by Facebook in 2008. However, it still has more than 100 million accounts and attracts over 0.23 million users every day.
Meanwhile, on MySpace (http://www.myspace.com/barackobama), Obama icons are really popular, they are on many people’s pages. Apparently, there is no better free and effective advertisement like this. According to AFP (http://www.physorg.com/news144650991.html):
"The next president of the United States has a MySpace profile," said MySpace political director Lee Brenner, who declined to predict a winner in the presidential race.
"And they will continue to engage citizens of the United States through that profile."
“MySpace polls show that 64 percent of its female users back Obama as compared to 31 percent favouring McCain. “
“Some 58 percent of the men using the News Corp-owned social networking website, which boasts a total of more than 100 million members, prefer Obama to 38 percent supporting McCain, according to survey results. “
“The younger the MySpace user the more likely he or she was to be pro-Obama, with his support rising from 53 percent of those 35 years of age or older to 62 percent of those between 18 and 24, results showed. “
"We find that the more people are engaged online the more they are actually engaged offline," Brenner told AFP.
“The younger the MySpace user the more likely he or she was to be pro-Obama, with his support rising from 53 percent of those 35 years of age or older to 62 percent of those between 18 and 24, results showed. “
"We find that the more people are engaged online the more they are actually engaged offline," Brenner told AFP.
"The more they go to news sites and social networks like MySpace, the more they go out and vote, knock on doors, give money to campaigns and take part in the political problem solving process."
“MySpace says that by working with Declare Yourself and Ultimate College Bowl campaigns it has helped get more that 300,000 people to register to vote in Tuesday's US presidential election. “
"No matter what happens, online presence is going to be a major part of campaign strategies from this point forward," Brenner said.
"This generation is more engaged and part of that comes from the idea that online social networking is all about creating communities and that is what politics is all about."
Youtube
Youtube is a very famous video sharing website. All people from the world may upload, share and view videos. It was founded in the February of 2005. Before the existence of Youtube, there were only few ways to watch videos online. There is no doubt that Youtube is succussed in making everyone to watch an online video. The world wide range of programs and topics were communicated by sharing videos on the Internet. This not only a culture exchange, but also offers a platform uniting people from the world together.
“Even on YouTube, Obama stole the thunder. His supporters uploaded more than 1,800 videos onto the BarackObama.com channel, which counted about 115,000 subscribers. The channel attracted more than 97 million video views by some 18 million channel visits. Compare that to McCain's YouTube presence: only 330 videos were uploaded to the JohnMcCain.com channel, which attracted just over 28,000 subscribers. The McCain channel attracted barely more than 2 million visits and some 25 million video views. On YouTube, Obama beat McCain 4 to 1.”( Fraser, Matthew, and Soumitra Dutta)
Conclusion
In conclusion, there is no doubt that the Internet has already been developed as a battle for political campaigns, to raise money and to raise votes. As more and more voters are massively use the Internet for social life and entrainment, customers buying and political participating, officers are seeking the connections between them and real people. They want to let people feel they are together with them. During the election of United States, there are over 500 politicians in United States had their Facebook profiles, MySpaces page and even Youtube account. In this point of view, there will be more and more in the upcoming election, not only in the United States, but also in United Kingdom, the Commonwealth of Australia and other democratic countries. As we mentioned in the beginning, the new communication technologies affect people’s life and the whole society. And there will be another revolution of communication technologies which bring huge impacts to people’s life on the way.
References
Matthew,Fraser and Soumitra Dutta.(2008). Obama and the Facebook effect: his masterful use of Web tools helped him win the presidency. Media Week, Retrieved December 12, 2008 from Google Scholar.
MySpace poll shows Internet generation favours Barack Obama. (2008, October 30). Retrieved from http://www.physorg.com/news144650991.html, December 11, 2008, from Google Scholar.
Obama and the Facebook Effect. (2008, November 24). MediaWeek, Retrieved December 10, 2008, from Academic Search Premier database.
Obama plugs into a political Facebook. (2008, October 30). Times (United Kingdom), Retrieved December 11, 2008 from Academic Search Premier database.
Pell, A. (n.d.). Perfect for Facebook fiends. Sunday Time, Retrieved December 15, 2008, from Newspaper Source database.
Westlake, E. (2008, Winter2008). Friend Me if You Facebook. TDR: The Drama Review, 52(4), 21-40. Retrieved December 15, 2008, from Academic Search Premier database.
