Technology and the Presidential Election of 2008

In David Carr’s article Campaigns in a Web 2.0 World; he advocates the importance of media and web coverage in the presidential election. David Carr shows how people no longer find everything out by the major network stations such as Fox, MSNBC, and CNN, but by the internet. Nowadays, people can watch videos about the presidential candidates on youtube without having to watch them on TV when they happen. Specifically, not everyone tuned in at 9 AM to watch Colin Powell endorse Barrack Obama. Instead, people watched it the next day online and were able to see the same thing that other people watched on TV. It is very important to use the internet and take full advantage of this in an election, because some undecided voters could be swayed by the blunders that are captured by the candidates and then put online. Also, it is necessary that candidates show their policies as often as they can and they make people know about their beliefs. In this current era, the best way for candidates to advertise is to control every aspect of the media. Now, this includes the internet as well as TV coverage. Both candidates have their own youtube accounts, and they have many videos with over 1 million views. In the end, Barrack Obama was elected president, but perhaps his use of the internet and media played a large role in his election, or maybe it was because of his policy or his appearance in the people’s opinion.