1. New Media & Elections
Victoria Cook
Rachael Shaney
Caitlin Wolfe

2. Social Media Presence in the 2008 Elections
Twitter:
115,623 followers
Facebook:
2,444,384 fans
Barack
Obama
4,911 followers
627,459 fans
John
McCain
Source: Media and Search Engine Scorecard by Pete Quily- November 5, 2008

3. Social Media Communication Cycle
Social media participant
Decodes a message, and
Transmits their message through a social media site
Which is received by many other users
They decide to resend or respond, becoming the sender
Noise
Source: Shannon and Weaver “The Mathematical Theory of Communication.”

4. Traditional Media Communication Cycle
Network executives
Decodes a message, and
Transmits their message through a television broadcast
Which is received by their audience
They can decide to pass the information, becoming the sender
With traditional media the receiver most often did not have the capacity to resend the information on a comparable scale.
Noise
Source: Shannon and Weaver “The Mathematical Theory of Communication.”

5. Social Media Lessons from the Obama Campaign
Start Early
Build to Scale
Innovate where necessary; do everything incrementally better
Make it easy to find, forward and act
Pick where you want to play
Channel online enthusiasm into specific targeted activities
Integrate online advocacy into every element of the campaign
Source: “The Social Pulpit” Edelman

7. A handful of the 770+ comments on the link to a form to submit questions for an upcoming live webcast of a talk with Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu.
Mandatory comments:
Hemp-related
Off-topic but political: health care, war in Iraq, etc.
Spam
‘Sheeple’
Obscenity-filled rants

8. Virginia senator George Allen was running for re-election in 2006 when he was recorded using a racial slur twice to refer to a campaign volunteer working for his opponent, Virginia-born and -raised S.R. Sidarth.
"So welcome, let's give a welcome to Macaca here! Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia!"
The video went viral, soon becoming a ‘most viewed’ video on YouTube.
His lead in the polls shrank considerably, and ultimately he lost.

9. Of course, not everything on the internet is true.
Misinformation can spread as quickly as truths.
Or more quickly, if it’s entertaining.

10. “… like television before it, the social web will radically alter who is electable”
“Social media’s effect will be no less dramatic [than that of television]”
Mashable

11. Television & politics – view from the 1940s
"The people have once more become the nation, as they have not been since the days when we were small enough each to know his elected representative. As we grew, we lost this feeling of direct contact - television has now restored it."
Frank Stanton, president, Columbia Broadcasting System
"The people have once more become the nation, as they have not been since the days when we were small enough each to know his elected representative. As we grew, we lost this feeling of direct contact-television has now restored it."

12. What did TV really bring to the table?
“aside from these changes in the quality of the images of parties and candidates … changes in the total number of bits of information and belief that make up these images”
Angus Campbell, University of Michigan
1952: Stevenson v. Eisenhower

13. “Social media” & politics – 2008-2010
“… like television before it, the social web will radically alter who is electable”
“Social media’s effect will be no less dramatic [than that of television]”
Mashable
Given that we have come to understand the true impact of television over a period of 50+ years, is it safe to make this claim based on two years of evidence and research?