New Communication Technologies in the President Election of U.S

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 44^th 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.

Lecture Day 10

I missed today's lecture because of my taxation law exam.

Ten days are short in out life. Suddenly, it has gone away. I might feel pity about I missed the last lecture and I might pity about I lost one relationship. However, I have to move on. I have to enforce myself to discover more people and more things.

In this hard time, I think about a lot. Life is short, then try you best to make yourself happy.

I will remember this summer, or maybe I will forget it tomorrow.

Thanks you, thank you too all.

Lecture Day 9

Today's lecture is about CyberUtopia.

The concept of Uptopia according to be is a dreaming community where you can get whatever you want. The Internet offers us a lot of information and entertainment. And as it is to me it is a utopia already. In the past days, you have a buy a CD to get the music, you need to buy a newspaper to obtain the information, you even have to buy a porn in an adult shop. But now, you can get these things.

The only bad thing of today's utopia is the speed of the internet is too slow. We need to promote the equipment and achieve a high speed to watch a HD movie online.

Discover the Emerging Online Life of the Digital Native

I read the article and it is good. Although we have several communication technologies, we still live in the real world. Naturally, we need a natural way to communicate with the other people. If we do not do this, we might lost something. Talking to people in person is feels good. You can check out his or her emotion and reaction all the time. If you are chatting with someone on the Internet, you may not able to do this. Sometimes you will not know him or her truely. Because you cannot see his or her face.

The new communication technologies help us a lot, but sometimes we should not use these technologies for our own good.

Lecture Day 8

In today's lecture, we watched a movie and discussed about the future of the Internet.

With the development of new technology, everything seems to be possible.

My prediction of the future of the Internet is we are going to live the Internet, like the movie Matrix. We kept our physical body sleeping all the time and we live pyschological. We hang out our friends via lines, in the Internet and we do not have to meet them in the real world.

This might a little bit strange now, but it will come true and people will not die, because they are always alive in the Internet.

Lecture Day 7

In today's lecture, the lecture is giving a lecture about media effects and games. In the real world, the entertainment is the main important part in the use of new communication technologies. There are many ways to entertain yourself by using new communication technologies. Playing a game is the most common way to get entertained.

There are both negative and positive aspects of the entainment of playing a game. People may easily get addicted to the game they play. They spend a lot of money and time on the game. They become speachless in real world. Some of them may have some health problems. On the other hand, playing a game is really interesting and full of fun.

Electronic games is also a very big industry in the entertainment.

Discover How to Make A Video

Today, I made a video and placed the video on my Facebook.

You will need to log on your Facebook account to watch the video.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=42721897889

Lecture Day 6

Today is the first day of December, we talk about the open resource and free software and purchased software on the Internet.

I downloaded many softwares on the Internet, the free ones, the purchased ones and even the purchased ones without payment. Basically, the free ones always with advertisements which shows on the program, the purchased ones definitely without any advertisements. They just like the one you bought from a shop. However, you do not have to insert a disc and install.

The future of the software is certainly purchased online. According to Microsoft, Windows 7 will be the last shop retail products of Microsoft. They will sell the software on the Internet. Not only the software, but also the music, HD movies and programs will all sold online. That is the trend of the development of the Internet.

The purchased ones are expensive but with high quality all the time. The free ones are fine but the advertisments inside are so annoying. Make a choice, the purchased ones or the free ones.

Discover Second Life

There was a lecture about second life last week.

In the past weekend, a friend of mine talked to me about second life on the Internet.

He is really excited about the vitual world. He has some shorts in real life. Not tall enough with a bold head. However, in his second life, he could be tall and strong with blond hair. That is attractive to him and the "hot chicks" in their virtual world.

The existing of second life is reasonable. People have different kinds of shorts in their real life. Sometimes they might feel negative about this. In their second life, they could live without these annoying shorts and they could feel good. Just like a shrink, the second life makes them to live happy.

In another circumstance, people hide their feelings and habits in the real world. In their second life, no one knows you. You can easily showing your perferences in the internet. They feel happy and relax.

In the real life, people feel frastrated and presure. In the second life, they might be themselves.

Lecture Day 5

In today's lecture, we watched a video which provides on the Triple J website. The video is mainly talking about the security and privacy of the Internet.

The security and privacy on the Internet is really important to every user of the Internet. People buy stuff on the Internet by their credit. If there is no security proetcting, people will lose their money easily. This may leads the closing of the websites such as ebay.com and amazon.com.

Besides, people always leave their personal details on the Internet even u are using a fake name. Your username, your eamil address or even your driving lisence and home address. These personal infomation may easily find by using google.com or yahoo.com.

I suppose these two issues need to be improved all the time.

Discover 3D Worlds and Socialising on the Internet

After I have checked out one 3D Worlds websites Active Worlds, I would like to answer the following two questions.

what are the qualitative differences between the regular IM program and a 3D environment?
The IM program always run on my desktop while a 3D envoronment always in full screen. When I use an IM prgram, I will can do something else and I am not really in the program. If I am in a 3D program, I only stays in the vitual world. Another different is the visual effect. I can look around in the virtual world while I can chatting online and remebering who I am all the time in front of a computer. I also can use my body language in the virtual world.

What is different about the kinds of socialising that happens in these spaces?
Body language and flying/crusing in this world may happen easily.

Does the 3D aspect make much difference?
Yes, of course. It makes me feel interesting and real.

In other words, are there things that are possible in one space that are not possible in the other?
Definitely. For example, you can shake your body in the virtual world while you can shake your body in font of your PC while typing on your MSN.

Could you think of where this sort of application might lead us?
Yes. It may leads the future and people may live in, just like the Matrix. People will not die, they can process his date which means transplant his memory to a virtual world, then he is alive all the time.

Lecture Day 4

New Media, Internet Studies and CyberCultural Studies is the topic of today's lecture.

I would like to define the concept of media. According to Wikipedia, media is for help of playing audio and video files. But to me, I think media in today's wold might defined as massive media which includes the Interent, cable network and publications. Since the Internet was invented, there is a revolution in media. It attract more and more people apart from cable network (television) and publications (newspaper and magazine). The Internet changes many people's life.

The concept of internet studies is defined as a field of academia dealing with the interaction between the Internet and modern society, and the sociological and technological implications on one another in Wikipedia. The existing of this this study is really important. There are many issues with the internet users such as addition. The study not only relevant to pysychnology but also linked to the development of the Internet.

CyberCultures is really popular to young people. They bring the online lifestyle to the real life. They make friends online while they hang out with these people offline. They purchases goods on the Internet while they receive the goods at home. They use some cyber language on their computers while they write or send the cybers language in the real life. Cyberculture is also named as a cool lifestyle to these people.

Discover Searching On the Internet 2 - Tutorial Session

• What search engines did you use in the Questions Session?

I used live.com and yahoo.com .

• How do you know that the place you got the answer is accurate?

I will check several answers of the same questions and choose the most agreed answer.

• How do search engines rank the stuff they find on the internet?

The most relevant information to the word you searched.

• Who, or what, makes one page (that you might get in your search results) more useful than another one, so that it is put at the top of your search results?

Wikipedia. I think it is useful and accurate. Otherwise, some sponsored sites.

• What are some of your favourite search engines? why do you like one more than others?

I prefer google. Because of it is accurate and has rich resource.

Discover Searching On the Internet 1 - Questions Session

1. Who was the creator of the infamous "lovebug" computer virus?
Onel De Guzman,http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061206122723AAObIMr

2. What is the world record for the largest watermelon?
The 268.8 Pound Watermelon, http://thelongestlistofthelongeststuffatthelongestdomainnameatlonglast.com/largest101.html

3. How did the Ebola virus get its name?
Ebola-haemorrhagic fever (EHF), commonly known simply as Ebola- is a highly infectious viral desease, and one of the deadliest diseases to have emerged in recent decades. The first identified human case occured in Africa in 1976, near the Ebola River in the CONGO, and sporadic, localized outbreaks of the disease have since flared up in a number of countires in sub-saharan Africa., http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AgoCg1_ioJbGWv85yM7PSrwjzKIX;_ylv=3?qid=20081024153255AAZkjQ1

4. What country had the largest recorded earthquake?
The largest earthquake ever recorded was a M(w) 9.5 on May 22, 1960 in Chile. This occurred on a fault that is almost 1,000 miles (1600 kilometers) long. The earthquake ruptured along the entire length of the fault., http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AlaiAf7mfhipUXW9JaYUyJkjzKIX;_ylv=3?qid=1006030902322

5. In computer memory/storage terms, how many kilobytes in a terabyte?

• 1 Byte = 8 bits
• 1 Kilobyte = 1024 bytes
• 1 Megabyte = 1024 Kilobytes = 1,048,576 bytes
• 1 Gigabyte = 1024 Megabytes = 1,073,741,824 bytes
• 1 Terabyte = 1024 Gigabytes = 1,099,511,627,776 bytes
• 1 Terabyte = 1,073,741,824 Kilobytes

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AtHDUsWZv35wqb__NJXLe2UjzKIX;_ylv=3?qid=20070215111506AAXHZJq

6. Who is the creator of email?
Ray Tomlinson, 1971,http://au.encarta.msn.com/media_461532659/E-mail.html

7. What is the "storm worm", and how many computers are infected by it?

• Storm Worm is a computer virus, also known as: Trojan-Downloader.Win32.Small.dam, Trojan.Downloader-647, Trojan.DL.Tibs.Gen!Pac13, Email-Worm.Win32.Zhelatin.a (Kaspersky), Downloader-BAI (McAfee), Troj/Dorf-Fam (Sophos), Trojan.Peacomm (Symantec), TROJ_SMALL.EDW (Trend Micro), Win32/Nuwar.N@MM (Microsoft)., http://antivirus.about.com/od/virusdescriptions/p/storm.htm
• Some experts have put the number of Storm-infected PCs at close to 10 million, but most estimates are more conservative, pegging the infected pool at between a few hundred thousand and a million or so machines.,http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AnUPFWaulSQMX60HR6E7X.4jzKIX;_ylv=3?qid=20071201163655AA8cWhV

8. If you wanted to contact the prime minister of Australia directly, what would be the most efficient way?
The Australian Prime Minister's webpage, http://www.pm.gov.au/contact/index.cfm

9. Which Brisbane-based punk band is Stephen Stockwell (Head of the School of Arts) a member of?
Black Assassin,http://www.blackassassins.net/

10. What does the term "Web 2.0" mean in your own words? What are some examples?

• The concept of "Web 2.0" began with a conference brainstorming session between O'Reilly and MediaLive International. Dale Dougherty, web pioneer and O'Reilly VP, noted that far from having "crashed", the web was more important than ever, with exciting new applications and sites popping up with surprising regularity. What's more, the companies that had survived the collapse seemed to have some things in common. Could it be that the dot-com collapse marked some kind of turning point for the web, such that a call to action such as "Web 2.0" might make sense? We agreed that it did, and so the Web 2.0 Conference was born.
• In our initial brainstorming, we formulated our sense of Web 2.0 by example:
  
  Web 1.0 Web 2.0
  DoubleClick-->Google AdSense
  Ofoto-->Flickr
  Akamai-->BitTorrent
  mp3.com-->Napster
  Britannica Online-->Wikipedia
  personal websites-->blogging
  evite-->upcoming.org and EVDB
  domain name speculation-->search engine optimization
  page views-->cost per click
  screen scraping-->web services
  publishing-->participation
  content management systems-->wikis
  directories (taxonomy)-->tagging ("folksonomy")
  stickiness-->syndication

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html

Lecture Day 3

Computers and the Internet were talking about in today's lecture.

Computer is one of the most greatest invention in the last century. It changes people's life in many aspects. To many people, the first thing after they open their eyes in the morning is turning on the computer. This may shows that computer plays an very important role in people's life.

Several years ago, computer is not for normal use. It helps scientists to process the data. It is introdued to people's life twenty years ago. Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, he created Windows which is easy to use the computer.

In 1900s, Apple also developed its own softwares and products. People have more choices to select a computer to use.

There is no doubt that the Internet is also a great invention in the history. People use the Internet broadly and daily.

The internet call is a really useful communication tool for me. I always call my friends via Skype and MSN. This not only save me a lot of money, but also help me to get rid of a cell phone.

I got the most information from the Internet and I have not reading newspapers for years. This may also helps the environment.

Additionally, the Internet entertains us. Chatting with a friend, playing a game online and watching a funny video are so common to the use of the Internet.

I love computers and I love the Internet.
I love to communicate with people more.

Discover Wikipedia 2

Gold Coast is a city where I am living on.

The link below is its profile on Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Coast,_Queensland.

The article is not too long but covers several aspects such as history, geography, governance, economy, culture, tourism and landmarks, education and infrastructure of the Gold Coast.

* Is this an accurate article?

It is an accurate article which describs useful information of the Gold Coast.

*Does it cover all the basic facts that you'd need to understand this topic?

As I mentioned above, it covers basic facts of the city.

* Does this article follow the wikipedia guidelines for useful articles?

Of course. It follows perfectly.

* Is this article fair and balanced, or is it biased towards a particular side or argument?

The artcile only provides information, not arguments. And there is no negative inforation about the city.

*Finally - What changes would you make to this article to improve it and make it useful for the wider wikipedia community?

I would like to add a map of Gold Coast which helps tourists.

Discover Wikipedia 1

Ayumi Hamasaki is one of my favourite singers.

Here is her webpage on Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayumi_hamasaki.

After reading the articles on the webpage, let me answer some questions here:
* Is this an accurate article?
Actually, it is an accurate article with a lot of information.
* Does it cover all the basic facts that you'd need to understand this topic?
Yes, it covers all what I need to undertand her and her music. Although I need some gossip about her, I am fine with no gossip here.
* Does this article follow the wikipedia guidelines for useful articles?
According to the wikipedia guidelines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_guidelines), it follows the wikipedia guidelines for useful articles. It is in the several categories and covers different aspects of Ayumi Hamasaki.
* Is this article fair and balanced, or is it biased towards a particular side or argument?
It is fair and clear, there is no argument in this article. The article just provides a lot of information about Ayumi Hamasaki.

*Finally - What changes would you make to this article to improve it and make it useful for the wider wikipedia community?

I would like to upload more high quality images of Ayumi Hamasaki. These images including covers of singles and albums. People may download these images to their iPod or iPhone.

Lecture Day 2

Today the lecturer talked about MySpace and Facebook.

Personally I do not use MySpace, because I do not like the design of the website. I think the webpage looks like a mess. And there are many strangers distrubing me on MySpace.

I am a fan of Facebook. I like the style of the webpage, simple and tidy. The most important thing to me is I can make some friends within the university which is really good. I do not add strangers on the internet and Facebook helps me to solve this problem by its very good privacy setting. Additionally, I would prefer adding people from colleges rather than people from the internet.

I think I have a wonderful lecture today and I will try MySpace.

Discover MySpace and Facebook

Do you have friends whom you only know from the internet and have never met in person? Is this different to people that you know in person? Describe the difference.
I have a few friends I know from the internet and have never met each other. There is certain different to the people whom I know in person. Chatting online with my cyber friends, I may totally be myself and I do not have to hide my emotions all the time. Although we share our life everyday online, we wont bother each other in real life. That is really good.

How long have you been using these communication technologies?
I have been using Widows Messenger for over 9 years. Facebook probably for over 1.5 years.

What influenced you to start using these particular technologies?
The reason for me to use Windows Messenger is to achive the goal of instant chat with my friends. I use Facebook because I want to know more people and contact them well. These two communication technologies help me to develop my network and more frends.

Is privacy an issue for you when using new technologies? (How do you deal with issues around privacy?)
I set very strong privacy on my Facebook. For both Facebook and Windows Messenger, I would like to add the people I know. I will not be bothered by strangers under the protection of privacy settings.

Discover New Communication Technlogies

Today is 24 November,2008.

We are here to discover.

My name is Yue. I am currently studying at Griffith University.

I created this blog to share my discovery in my life with your guys.

Communication plays an very important role in society all the time. Naturally, people have two essential ways to communicate with each other, speaking and writing. In the past, people have to talk to each other when they physically in the same area and they have to write to each other with time delays. In today's world, People not only can talk to each other immediately via phones, internet calls, but also they can wirte messages instantly via SMS, blogs , emails and IM tools. These new technology communication methods are very useful in people's daily life and all aspects of the business.

As it for me, I use several new communicate technologies everyday. When I log on a PC, I will firstly sign on my Windows Live Messenger to let my friends know that I am online. After that I will open my Internet Explore to sign in my Facebook to check out my friends' news feed. I will also chek the news too. I know exactly what happens in the world while I am home.

Well, I will discover more new communication technologies with you guys in the future.