Obama's Presidency and the Power of Social Media

 

The Power of Social Media and the Obama Presidency

According to Shirky (2011), despite the confusing records of the impact of social media on political communication, the platforms are widely recognized as tools for coordinating political movements in the modern world. The success of Barack Obama's presidential campaign and presidency has been largely credited to his successful utilization of social networking platforms, mobile devices, and interactive websites to involve various groups in political engagement. Obama is termed as the first "social media president.” The term “social media president” gives a fascinating analysis of the use of social media by the President. The phrase also discloses the significant and enduring narrative that revolves around the transformation of the presidential office. The Obama administration was the first president to utilize social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram. The White House proudly asserts that Obama was the inaugural individual to post a tweet from the @POTUS account on Twitter, broadcast live on Facebook, and employ a filter on Snapchat. Significant distinctions exist between using social media platforms during Obama's campaign and in his administration. This article explores President Obama's use of social media platforms during campaigns and after elections.

Obama’s Campaign and Social Media

At the beginning of 2007, Barack Obama, a relatively unknown senator, competed for the presidency against Hilary Clinton, a well-known Democratic candidate. Obama took advantage of the social media networks to facilitate his campaign. Social networking websites are well-suited for campaign initiatives because of their ability to discreetly access and utilize extensive formal and informal connections with the target audiences. The Obama team campaign utilized many online social networking platforms, including Facebook and MySpace, primarily to connect with a wide range of young individuals and minority groups and secondarily to maintain their interest through regular campaign updates. Facebook emerged as the predominant social networking platform for the campaign, assembling a total of 2.4 million supporters on the Obama Facebook group by the end.

The use of social media served not only to gather a large group of motivated volunteers who believed in their ability to effect change but also to raise funds (a record-breaking $600 million). The campaign occurred at a crucial moment when social media and smartphone usage reached many people. Obama utilized social media to circumvent conventional media channels and establish direct connections with his supporters. He utilized several social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, MySpace, Digg, and Podcasts. Through the adoption of crowdsourcing, Obama successfully mobilized a large number of supporters to generate and disseminate campaign information. Besides, Barack Obama's personal website, barackobama.com, provided various downloadable resources for individuals to disseminate the message and tools to coordinate supporters and volunteers. The campaign team has yet to invent any new approach. Instead, by integrating social networking tools into a unified movement, they harnessed an unexpected power to generate funds, coordinate local efforts, counter defamation campaigns, and mobilize voters.

Moreover, Obama’s social media relationship with supporters was not just traditional connections of democrats and party loyalists, but a network of supporters who also utilized their devices to organize people to get to vote, created campaign clips, and spread them across social media platforms that got millions of views. Obama supporters who provided their personal information in exchange for a rally ticket, an email alert regarding the vice presidential selection, or a sign-in on Facebook or MyBarackObama can now be sent mass emails at a negligible cost.   Instead of relying on continuous polling, which has traditionally driven presidential government, the Obama administration can utilize the Internet to gauge voter sentiments (Goodman et al., 2011). The internet movement resulted in offline actions, such as increasing youth voter turnout, which potentially played a crucial role in determining the outcome.

Obama’s use of social media platforms campaign grew drastically throughout his second run 2011. He became the first President in political history to announce his re-election bid via YouTube video. He further created a hashtag, #Obama2012, used across the various sites to facilitate support for his re-election. During this time, the number of people using social media increased, and people were more attentive to these platforms. Apart from emails, Obama directly interacted with supporters via social media platforms. He administered multiple Q&As on Twitter and held discussions on the website and Reddit. As a result, Obama gained a pool of engaged individuals that sustained his election campaign. One outstanding feature of his social media interactions was that he established an open narrative with the public by focusing on his personality and family. He avoided controversial topics on his social media accounts since these topics usually attract negative energy and are politically driven. As a result, people could easily relate to Obama, which attracted many voters since they could find common ground with him.

Obama’s Presidency

On November 4, 2008, Obama achieved a significant milestone by becoming the first African American to secure victory in the election, defeating Republican contender John McCain, and subsequently assuming the position of the 44th president of the United States.   Obama secured a victory with a substantial margin of approximately 200 electoral votes and 8.5 million popular votes. During his presidency, the White House communication undertook the “digital transition” process. President Obama kept intact with his followers through various social media accounts. The White House also affirmed its dedication to disseminating its content to the American public.

To achieve this objective, the President provided easily accessible and downloadable archives through technological tools and gadgets that may offer the content in synthesized formats. The White House invited the general public to propose innovative methods for archiving this content and ensuring its long-term usefulness and accessibility. The invitation specifically targeted "students, data engineers, artists, and researchers," the communities most likely to possess skill and interest in the technological field. Through this, Obama's administration reaffirmed to the public that it was up to the latest trends to keep the connection. The extensive use of various social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, and Snapchat ensured that the Obama White House solidified digital communication technology's undeniable practicality and moral superiority in the contemporary era.

References

Shirky, C. (2011). The political power of social media: Technology, the public sphere, and political change. Foreign affairs, 28-41.

Goodman, J., Wennerstrom, A., & Springgate, B. F. (2011). Participatory and social media to engage youth: from the Obama campaign to public health practice. Ethnicity & disease, 21(3 0 1), S1.