Use of Technology in Politics Technology

Technology: Use of Technology in Politics

Use of Technology in Politics: Technology

Technology's Political Impact

Technology has changed the way we live our lives, influencing how we work, conduct business, and even interact with each other. Technology has also become an integral and indispensable part of our political processes. No individual perhaps demonstrates the significance of technology in the political arena better than President Barrack Obama. Obama is president today partly because of his aggressive use of social media and technology in his campaign processes. Obama's campaign in 2008 used technology, particularly social networks, online video, text messaging, and email advocacy to raise money and develop volunteers (Rospars et al., 2010). It sent out a billion emails, including unique campaign messages targeted at certain segments of the 13 million members (Rospars et al., 2010).

The campaign created a personalized social network (www.mybarrackobama.com) (MyBO), which allowed members to connect and interact with one another (Rospars et al., 2010). Through this network, volunteers were able to communicate with potential donors, with the platform in the end managing to raise $30 million from personal fund raising pages, and over $500 million from the corporate world (Rospars et al., 2010). Besides fundraising, the MyBO platform allowed volunteers and registered Obama supporters to increase their network by wooing undecided voters within their localities (Rospars et al., 2010). The Neighbor-to-Neighbor tool launched in September, 2008 allowed logged-in users and volunteers to view lists of undecided voters within their vicinity, and make toll-free calls to convince them to join the Barrack campaign. Alternatively, volunteers could conduct door-to-door visits to woo these undecided voters, and get them to join the Obama camp.

Moreover, instead of going door-to-door to register voters, the campaign launched the 'Vote for Change' registration site, which allowed voters to register online to their own convenience. The 'Vote for Change' tool also gave logged-in MyBO users an opportunity to see which of their friends in battleground states were not registered, and to consequently talk to, and help them get registered.

Technology was also used to make voters aware of the location of their polling stations -- anyone who had given their zip code and email address received a reminder to vote, along with the hours and polling address (Rospars et al., 2010). Voters could also look up their polling addresses on the campaign website -- a user would enter their zip code, and the website would then list at least five people with the same polling place, and ask the user to get in touch with them (Rospars et al., 2010). On the day of the elections, the campaign used Twitter to post texting strings and toll-free numbers for finding polling locations (Rospars et al., 2010).

Whenever Obama came off a stage after speaking, a video of the entire event would be posted on YouTube, and supporters notified of the same through text messages or email. When Obama finally won, text messages were sent to all users and volunteers who had provided their contact details. The message read, "All of this happened because of you. Thanks, Barrack" (Rospars et al., 2010).

Technology, therefore, played a huge role in Obama's victory, and his movement from a little-known senator to the presidency. His opponents did not run such a vigorous digital campaign -- McCain's followers on Twitter, for instance, were 23 times less than Obama's, and 50 million of Obama's supporters watched campaign-related videos online, compared to only 10 million of McCain's supporters (Rospars et al., 2010). One could conclude nonetheless that Obama's political campaign would not have been as effective if he had relied on traditional media.

Traditional media such as print and audiovisual media do not allow for connection and interaction as the internet and social media networks. It would be difficult building a wide volunteer and user network with traditional media. Moreover, there would be no way for supporters to connect with other supporters or undecided voters, and encourage them to register as voters. Individual users and volunteers would not feel like they own the campaign process because traditional media would not allow for the personalization of services -- for instance, it would not be possible for supporters to obtain personalized messages on polling stations, or unregistered friends that they could encourage to register. Moreover, without the internet, volunteers would have been forced to conduct a door-to-door voter-registration process, which would be time consuming and reduce the amount of time available for campaigning and wooing voters. Obama's supporters would also not be able to follow campaign proceedings such as when he speaks in a far-off state as it would be costly to have the same broadcast live on audiovisual media. Basically, therefore, Obama's political campaign would not have been as effective and as interactive without technology.

Relation to the Social Theory and Best Practices for Organizations

The social theory emphasizes the concept of interaction in communication -- that the process of communication ought to involve more than just passing a message across. According to the social theory, better results are achieved if there is interaction between the communicator and his recipient. The most effective mediums of communication, therefore, are those that allow for high degrees of interaction between the communicating parties. The internet allows for interaction better than the traditional media of communication. Obama's campaign was focused on using technology, and particularly the internet to interact with supporters, in addition to passing information across. His competitors, on the other hand, subscribed to the medium theory, using the internet to simply pass messages across. Differently from Obama's campaign, competitors such as McCain engage less with their supporters on virtual platforms, which is evident from the small size of followers on Twitter and visitors on YouTube. In the end, Obama's use of the internet as a medium for socialization and interaction as opposed to simple communication paid off.