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Tim Stauffer Dr. Archibald 110.50B 10NOV2008

Change Is Here: How The Internet is Transforming Politics

For years Americans have, by huge margins, primarily gotten their information about politics from television and newspapers. In the past communication has been through direct mail and by television ads. This is all changing with the emergence of the Internet. Young people all over the country are embracing online networking as a way to get involved in campaigns. They are getting much of their news from online news sites and blogs. The Internet is changing almost every facet of life and the world of politics is no exception. Howard Dean, the formally little known governor of Vermont, used the web site Meetup.com to propel himself into the national spotlight during the contest for president in 2003 through 2004. John Kerry was the favored establishment candidate with boatloads of money but Governor Dean came close (there is a dispute about how close) to ripping the Democratic nomination from him. Meetup.com was created in 2002 and the Dean campaign started using it in 2003. Meetup.com is a networking site where people can connect with others who have similar interests and then have meetings in real life. It has become a common tool for political campaigns. The Dean camp would organize monthly meetings and send the Governor to go meet in person with them. In April of 2003 Howard Dean had upwards of 13,000 supporters on Meetup while Senator Kerry had only around 700. The Dean campaign then made a deal with Meetup and made a link from the Dean site to the Meetup site. In February of 2004 the Dean campaign was up to 189,000 supporters on Meetup. Dr. Dean only won one of the primary states and his campaign quickly faded into obscurity but not before he demonstrated the tremendous power of the Internet to connect and motivate people. After seeing the Dean people have so much success the Kerry camp signed a deal with Meetup and saw a huge increase in the number of supporters for Kerry. The Bush-Cheney campaign also got into the act by organizing parties through the Internet. At these parties people would get together and raise money and distribute campaign items like t-shirts and bumper stickers. These house parties played a significant impact in the 2004 presidential race. These online networking sites play a key role in the fund raising efforts of office seekers. Years ago there were less stringent campaign finance laws so individuals and corporations could give huge sums of money to the candidates they liked or wanted to influence. Now there are strict limits on how much individuals and corporations can give to political campaigns. This has made it imperative for candidates to seek many small donations to build up the massive pile of cash it takes to run an effective campaign. So these social networking sites spread the word about a candidate to many people and bring in multitudes of small donations. Al Gore believes Barrack Obama could not have won the presidency without using the web. Gore also said at the recent Web 2.0 conference that the Internet is a powerful tool for people to use in promoting social change. He believes people should use this new medium to rally support for environmental protection. Senator Obama did an excellent job of using the Internet to help get him elected. At one point in 2007 he was the only politician to rank in the top 100 of podcasts in the news and politics section. Obama has a very Internet savvy base of backers. His supporters are slightly more likely than Clinton backers to be Internet users and way more likely than McCain supporters. Phil Noble relates that when he was around Obama, he noticed that Obama would check his Blackberry every chance he got. This is a huge contrast to Senator McCain who does not like to use computers and says his wife helps him with them. Whatever the reason for this technological divide, Obama’s willingness to whole heartily embrace the Internet revolution has helped his cause. When Obama announced he was running for president his web site was already up and running. It was more than just generic information, it had ways for people to become involved in the campaign. One of the things which helped Senator Obama decide to run was the fact that an independent group of his supporters set up a page for him on MySpace and it quickly gained thousands of members. Steve Schifferes of the BBC believes Obama has learned from the failure of the Dean candidacy. He says Dean failed to convince the people of Iowa to vote for him and this led to the fizzling of his campaign. Obama on the other hand, he says, has taken a cue from the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign and done Internet data mining to get information about potential voters so they can effectively go after their vote. One of the things all political candidates are concerned about is how they are covered by the media. TV changed the way politics was done when Nixon and Kennedy debated on TV for the first time and the Internet is bringing in a change of equal measure. Newspapers are facing decreasing circulation and network tv is losing viewers at an alarming rate. People are increasingly getting political information from the Internet and this is a game changer. Instead of relying on three networks and a couple cable stations and periodicals the folks now have a seemingly infinite number of news source choices on the web. The 2008 elections have broken records of how many people have used the Internet in participating in politics. Aaron Smith and Lee Rainie believe the Internet has ceased to be an outside player and has now come to the main stage. It was the bloggers who caught Senator Obama on tape making comments about folks in Pennsylvania being bitter and clinging to their guns and religion. This became a major point for the McCain camp to hammer away at Obama with and it probably never would have surfaced without the Internet age where everything caught on tape can immediately be uploaded and shared with the world. Obama’s pastor also got a lot of views on Youtube and this brought on trouble for Obama. Bruce Wilson is a blogger and he made people aware of controversial comments made by the Reverend John Hagee. This led to Senator McCain denouncing Hagee’s comments and distancing himself from him. The bloggers often play the role of digging up obscure information and banging the drums and building momentum until the story gets picked up by the mainstream media. In this way they help shape the political dialogue. Many journalists have been critical of the blogosphere because the bloggers usually just post whatever they want without any outside review. Nevertheless they continue to grow in numbers and in popularity. They are credited with bringing down Senator Trent Lott because of some comments he made at a birthday party. Initially the main stream press did not pick up the story but the bloggers kept at it and eventually Lott had to resign his leadership post over allegations of racial insensitivity. Jay Rosen of New York University says "Readers are becoming writers." This allows the public to engage the media like never before and challenge what they see as incorrect or unfair. Of Course blogging is not just limited to the United States since the Internet is world wide. Many people believe blogging will improve the political atmosphere in Arab countries. Many Arab governments do not like being criticized though so bloggers may find themselves harassed by the officials they blog about. Some Arab bloggers blog in English for an American audience but some have warned this may lead to pandering to the American readers and a bending of the truth on the ground. Certainly the bloggers in the Arab world do not write with the same carefree attitude of their American counterparts. Some of them have even ended up in jail and been tortured for their writings. A main concern is that Arab governments will do whatever is necessary to crack down on these blogs with no respect for freedom of speech or human rights. Here in America though it is a free for all and as more homes get hooked up to the Internet everyday the influence of the web on politics will continue to grow at an amazing rate. Recently Ron Paul broke the record for a single day of contributions by bringing in 4.2 million in one day largely with the help of online fund raising. His record will probably be broken in the next presidential campaign if not the 2010 midterm. Whether they like it or not all politicians must now have an eye towards the Internet as it continues to change politics all over the world.

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