Friday 16 March 2007

Futile Search

It’s proved impossible to get any printed academic research on the impact of new media in the 2004 Presidential election, the first election in which the use of email and internet was widespread.

I think researchers will continue to struggle with the pace of change. By the time they get round to analysing something, technology has moved on. Just look at the current use of MySpace and Second Life by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton respectively. In 2004 I had never heard of either delivery channel.

The speed of change is reflected in the Presidential Elections book which I have added to the reading list today. The book has a chapter on campaigning which also includes a couple of pages under the heading ‘other media’. Can you guess what they mean by ‘other media’? Well, VHS tapes and 1-800 numbers!!

When you say it out loud it feels like you are talking about some long gone era but we are talking about the Bush v Gore campaign, not Kennedy v Nixon!! Examining the impact any of these new media channels has on engagement or activism is going to be a perennial problem because the minute most of us have understood what on earth the latest tool does it’s superseded by something new.

I suppose political communications will just have to keep using these tools though because it can’t be perceived to be out of step with current developments, regardless of whether anyone has a clue about what impact it might have.
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1 comment:

Ophelia Nge said...

Politics doesn't fascinate me these days but since man is by nature a political animal according to Aristotle, I would have my say on politics too.
It is usually difficult to assess the real impact of communication channels on audiences whether it is traditional media or new media. A lot of people especially in the western world do make use of these new media channels to get information. Phillip Howard in his article, The Media Campaign and the Managed Citizen cited a survey which revealed that after the 2004 elections, over half the electorate had gone online to get news or information about the campaigns. Whether these channels gets people into activism or engagement is another question altogether but the fact that a lot of people actually receive political campaign messages through these channels is already a step in the right direction for the political communicators, so I think it is worth the trouble for political communicators to make use of these channels.

18 March 2007 at 21:41

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