When Obama won the US election it occurred to me, and many others, that this was interesting from a social media perspective. During the MSNBC election night coverage one of the pundits blurted out that Obama didn’t “owe” anyone for his victory. Whereas presidents usually had to pay back Big Oil or Big Pharmacy or Big God, Obama got his $150m of finance from an absurdly wide base with over half of donations being under $200 (the maximum being $2,300). The numbers might be off but they indicate online tools enabled the campaign to involve many more people that the traditional tools would allow.
But as a Brit my knowledge of the intricacies of the US political system is pretty limited so I was left with a vague sense that a tipping point had occurred but no evidence or context to develop it. So I was pleased to come across this talk by Henry Jenkins at MIT entitled The Role of Civic Media in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election. If you’re short on time you the meat is in the first 25 minutes. The rest is Q&A and also has value.
There’s a lot in there which I’m still processing but I’d welcome your thoughts.
(I forget who linked this to me…)