SOCIAL MEDIA: Candidates are starting to distribute propaganda using the internet.
By Stephen Park, Staff Writer
In today’s society it is simply not enough to shake some hands, make some creative TV ads, kiss a baby or two or stage some clever photo ops. No—to reach America’s youth, candidates need to venture into some unfamiliar territory: social media.
If the 2008 presidential election was just dipping a toe into the pool of social media, its 2012 counterpart is a dive into the deep end. At stake are votes from citizens, particularly the younger ones, who may not read the paper or watch a lot of television but spend plenty of time on the social web. In response, both candidates are taking the propaganda online, utilizing websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and Spotify to gain as many votes as possible.
Each campaign wasted no time at all injecting itself into everything people do. They have created as many accounts as possible on every available social website. For instance, they placed internet-exclusive ads on Youtube to remind users of the presidential elections. Internet-users can also follow the presidential candidates on sites like Twitter or Facebook to instantly get the latest scoop, or just get a glimpse into their day-to-day lives. The new campaigning techniques are endless from photo sharing to commercials that play after videos or songs on sites like Pandora or Spotify.
In fact, President Barack Obama even did an AMA (ask me anything) on the mass media sharing site Reddit, where he allowed citizens to freely ask him questions. The AMA was so popular that it crashed the site in a matter of minutes.
The techniques may be relatively new, but they are based on some old-fashioned political principles, according to Zachary Moffatt, the digital director for the Romney campaign. “The more people you talk to, the more likely you are to win,” Moffatt said, who oversees about 120 staff members and volunteers. “The more people who interact with Mitt, the more likely he is to win. Social extends and amplifies that.”
But as is often the case with the Internet, anything the candidates post is left vulnerable, where even a well-intended post can quickly avalanche into a disaster. Typos, misunderstandings and direct quotes used out of context are all used to hurt the campaigners.
Obama told a crowd in July, “You didn’t build that,” while talking about the importance of public infrastructure. However, the Romney campaign took its chance uploading images of people with signs that say, “I built this.” This is only one of the numerous examples of the retorts and rebuttals both campaigns must deal with.
The usage of social media opens up the stage to a quicker and more useful way of getting out a message. However users must be warned that anything said or uploaded can and will be used against them.