By: Brittany T. Epps
Washington, DC—In the presidential election of 1960, John F. Kennedy was able to defeat his opponent and revitalize the way campaigns were ran by using television, a relatively new medium, to connect with voters across America.
In 2008, Barack Obama’s prowess over the Internet, a platform that had been fairly neglected and underestimated in terms of campaigning, led to his success and ensured that every election following would have to take the virtual world into account.
In the 2012 election season, in which for many voters, a candidate’s funding, likeability, and very existence is linked to his Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, Pintrest, and other social media sites, it is important to look back to the first election that brought awareness to the power of the World Wide Web and online technology: 2004.
“Social media has played a significant role in the coverage and impact of the 2012 election,” said Jennifer C. Thomas, a professional journalist and media professor. “Yet, it was in 2004 that the Internet was first used in a presidential election.”
During the 2004 presidential race between George W. Bush and John Kerry, Facebook was still known as “The Facebook” and Twitter was nonexistent. Candidates utilized other, seemingly antiquated, methods to aid their campaigns.
“I think blogs were more prevalent in 2004,” said Ron Nixon, a New York Times Washington Correspondent.
“Twitter wasn’t a factor, Facebook wasn’t a factor—it was more Internet blogs and traditional outreach like TV and radio advertising. That was basically the way people would run a campaign since the 60s. Another thing is email. In 2004, it was not new but it was utilized and kind of new in campaigning.”
In 2004, Howard Brush Dean III, a Democrat who served six terms as the 79th Governor of Vermont, ran unsuccessfully for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination. All was not in vain, however, as his Internet-based fundraising and grassroots organizing took a starring role in the 2004 campaign season and set the tone for many political candidates after him, including President Obama.
Once the votes were tallied, social media did not win Dean the nomination, but it did offer the nation a glance at what this sort of campaigning could produce.
“In 2004, presidential hopeful Howard Dean transformed politics by utilizing the Internet as an integral part of his campaign,” said Alexis Rice, a Johns Hopkins fellow and the creator of Campaigns Online. “Dean was the first candidate to use blogging, Meetups, and other innovative technology tools as part of his campaign strategy. Thanks to the innovation of the Dean campaign, blogs are a useful political communication tool that has become a standard not only in presidential campaigns, but in state and local elections as well.”
From 2004 and on, the use of the Internet and social media has become a method for candidates to reach out to and connect with a broader demographic, raise unforeseen funds, and more effectively inform the voting population of their political stance.
Presidential candidates, however, were certainly not the only ones utilizing online technology. Voters did as well. The use of social media by presidential candidates in 2004 became a way for many voters to be informed of candidates’ positions, views, and their history in government.
“During the 2004 presidential election, there were 75 million people who used the Internet for political news,” said Thomas.
According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 37 percent of the adult population and 61 percent of online Americans–fully 75 million Americans–accessed the internet to obtain political news and information, participate directly in the political process by volunteering or giving contributions to candidates, and to discuss candidates and debate issues in email. Approximately 35 percent of Internet users, or about 43 million people, said they used email to discuss politics, and one of the most popular email subjects were jokes about the candidates and the election.
In 2004, voters were beginning to use the Internet as a platform to vocalize and share their opinions with the rest of the nation. This election changed the way in which citizens speak to each other about politics.
“Newly armed with online pulpits, more citizens are using the Web to vocalize opinions through blogs, video, email and podcasts and to mobilize community efforts around the candidates,” said Stefanie Olsen, a senior writer for CNet.
A post-election, nationwide survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project and the Pew Research Center for The People & The Press shows that the online political news consumer population grew dramatically from 18% of the U.S. population in 2000 to 29% in 2004.
There was also a reported striking increase in the number who cited the internet as one of their primary sources of news about the presidential campaign: 11% of registered voters said the internet was a primary source of political news in 2000 and 18% said that in 2004.
Young adults–voters under 30–make up the majority of social media users and are those who stay on the cutting edge of technological advances. According to Pew, currently 95% of 18-29 year-olds use the Internet, and 78% of all American adults use the Internet on a daily basis.
In 2004, by successfully utilizing new and social media online and even creating blogs targeted to this specific demographic, Dean’s campaign was able to engage younger voters–a segment of America’s population that was crucial to Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008 and in the present election.
In 2004, the Internet was found to be a viable arena for political expression by both presidential candidates and voters in a way that it had never been before. 2008’s presidential election took the Web’s capabilities several steps further. In 2012, even more potential has been unearthed and candidates are more tech-savvy than ever.
As online technology advances, so will presidential campaigns.
The question is, though, what sort of platform will be able to crash and overwrite the mighty powers of the Internet?
The S.M.E. Project [2012] 