Emerging communications technologies and trends

¶ … Communication Technologies are Influencing the 2008 Presidential Election

Web 2.0 Technologies Encourage Greater Voter Participation

Implicit in the many technologies that together comprise Web 2.0 is the fostering of higher levels of collaboration and interactivity with Presidential candidates. The greater the levels of collaboration and interactivity, in addition to the sense of having ones' voice heard, the greater the level of participation and identification with any process. This is the essence of how communities and organizations constructively change over time. The advent of Web 2.0 technologies is the catalyst for higher levels of voter participation than has been the case in the past, as evidenced by the significantly higher viewers Senator Obama has on YouTube compared to his Republican rival Senator McCain. The essence of these higher levels of voter participation and candidate support can be attributed to how much more voters have a sense of identifying with the election and its result (Laslier, Van der Straeten, 2008). Empirical studies show that the greater the level of interactivity with candidates and their stance on issues, the higher the level of participation in the political process and the greater the influence on their spheres of influence also voting (Moon, Birdsall, Ciesluk, Garlett, 2006). This transcends beyond changing attitudes for a short period of time and becomes an entirely new perspective of how voters perceive the democratic process and their place in it. In essence, Web 2.0 technologies are serving as the catalyst of making the election process more immediate, transparent, and capable of staying more agile and relevant to more voters. As a result, there is ample evidence to suggest that there is going to be a significantly higher voter participation rate for the 2008 Presidential Election compared to previous ones, specifically for the reasons why the collection of Web 2.0 technologies continue to gain momentum and dominate entire demographic segments' approach to communicating.

Researchers specifically look at these interactions and attempt to quantify them over time to further validate research hypotheses of the effects of collaborative and interactive technologies on voter participation. Research specifically into how voter participation varies by geographic region is also being studied continually, originating in the last series of Congressional elections (Cebula, Toma, 2006). The development of the Participation Enhanced Polity Score (PEPS) (Moon, Birdsall, Ciesluk, Garlett, 2006) which seeks to combine those institutional factors that contribute to citizen participation on the one hand and the current level of voter participation and internalized responsibility on the other, is a commonly used metric to measure voter's levels of participation vs. apathy in any given political election. The PEPS metric is being actively used to measure the implications of Web 2.0 technologies in ensuring a higher level of voter participation and voting over time (Laslier, Van der Straeten, 2008).

From the PEPS metric and the traceability of Web 2.0-based participation as shown on techpresident.com, a scorecard can be created that predicts the level of voter participation based on the effectiveness of campaign strategies candidates create to capitalize on Web 2.0-based technologies. The use of stratification techniques and Web analytics also make it possible to predict on a location-by-location basis the level of voter participation as well (Cebula, Toma, 2006). What is beginning to occur is the integration of business intelligence based on the data available through Web-based data capture and measurement techniques being analyzed through metrics that have been empirically derived and proven to support the measurement of voter participation (Moon, Birdsall, Ciesluk, Garlett, 2006).

Further adding insight and intelligence to the analysis of voter participation and segmentation into audiences, presidential candidates and their staffs are highly skilled in defining perceptual maps based on psychographic data, creating a graphical portrait of each audience within a given constituent base. The use of psychographics or the self-assignment to groups by individuals, when combined with participation in Web 2.0-based technologies for interacting with clients has significant potential as the basis of further analysis and predictive analytics by candidates and news organizations.