Sunday, June 30, 2013

Read It Then Delete It (The New Art Of Grassroots Campaigning)


                                      The New Art of Grassroots Campaigning

In the United States, the first use of the phrase "grassroots and boots" is thought to have been created by Senator Albert Jeremiah Beveridge of Indiana, who declared of the Progressive Party in 1912 that: "This party [the Progressive Party] has come from the grass roots. It has grown from the soil of people's hard necessities” (http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definitions/Grassroots).  In an article for online readers, Ruth McCambridge (2012) wrote:

So...I can claim editorial prerogative to declare a word-of-the-day or even of the century for this sector it is grassroots.  The meaning of the term should be sacred to nonprofits and we should be crystal-clear about what it means. Grassroots groups are organizations that do not just reflect the voices of those people most affected by the issue being addressed but are responsive to and largely led by these constituencies. 

In the United States, candidates running for office use several combinations of grassroots campaigning to reach constituents.  Some include door to door solicitation, town hall meetings and mailings. Have you ever opened your mailbox and found it stuffed with flyers, post cards and generated letters from prospective local, state, or national officials running for office?  Have you ever noticed a candidate’s door hanger at your front door and wondered when did that get there?   So, now you have a handful of flyers and a door hanger to dispose of.  The next stop is the trash can, what a waste.  However I conclude that it would be simpler to not have to deal with all the ads, and be able to just read it then delete it.  Hopefully the information presented in this blog will help you come to the same conclusion.          

In the 2008 U.S. presidential election, the Obama campaign created a Social Network Site (SNS), my.barackobama.com, to successfully recruit thousands of campaign volunteers from across the country, and to sign them up for door-knocking and precinct-walking (Dickinson, 2008).  President Obama’s campaign proved that this new grassroots movement can lead to significant voter registration for a political party.  This style of campaigning provides evidence that SNS can be used in conjunction with traditional grassroots campaigning to become a very effective tool for reaching constituents.

Traditional media during campaigns such as posters, television advertising, press conferences and journalistic interviews continue to be important political functions.  Campaign television ads still remain a cornerstone for politicians.  However, in a website articletelevision ads are used to reach broad audiences. Ads can either be positive, supporting the views of the particular candidate buying the air time, or negative, deriding the candidate’s opponenttelevision ads are used to reach broad audiences. Ads can either be positive, supporting the views of the particular candidate buying the air time, or negative, deriding the candidate’s opponent. for the Local Victory called, “Using Social Media in Your Campaign” Joe Garecht (2010) stated that:

Political consultants and candidates touted the promise of the Internet and e-mail in changing the face of campaigns.  As with most innovations, proponents of web-based campaigning oversold the medium, suggesting that within a year or two, campaigns would raise most of their money and spend much of their time exclusively online.

 A new study indicates that social media is one of the best ways to get into office.  According to the study released by SocialVibe (2011), a digital advertising company, “social media creativity helps candidates stand out amidst the noise of campaign season.”  The results of this study also found that “engagement advertising” through social media yields increased financial return in political campaigns.  The main component for this very rapid growth is the “sharing” effect of digital content.  Sharing through Twitter can be done by simply re-tweeting the tweet.  Information obtained by email, blogs, Facebook and YouTube can be forwarded or shared as well.  This process is faster, and less labor intensive than door to door campaigning, and also more cost effective than flyers, postcards, and door hangers.

 A study conducted by Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (2010), reported that 97% of those polled used Facebook during the election. In addition, the report showed that a particular age group used social media to discuss the election, share content and take polls. The study also suggested that the 18-24 year old age group "receive most of their political information online and rarely read a printed newspaper or listened to radio for information."  Furthermore, in response to an article in Policy & Internet (2012); “The Case Against Mass Emails,” David Karpf (2012) tests those claims, relying on a combination of personal observation within the advocacy community and on a new quantitative dataset of advocacy group email activity to articulate three points. His first point is that emails are functionally equivalent to the photocopied, faxed petitions and postcards of ‘offline’ activism and represent a difference-of-degree rather than a difference-in-kind.  Secondly, such low-quality, high-volume actions are a single tactic in the strategic repertoire of advocacy groups, providing a reduced cause for concern about their limited effect in isolation. Finally, the empirical reality of email activation practices has little in common with the dire predictions offered by common critiques.

Look at it like this, in the 2008 Presidential election, then-Senator Obama and his campaign staff initiated a strong use of social media.  Doris Graber‘s book Mass Media and American Politics obtained and supplied statistics about President Obama‘s use of social media in the 2008 campaign, and the clearly visible discrepancies between Obama‘s use of social media and the social media use of his opponent, John McCain. Statistics like Obama having 2 million Facebook friends while McCain only had 600,000 proved that Obama used social media much more than McCain in the 2008 election (Graber 2010).  Facebook groups like “One Million Strong for Barack,” and “Students for Barack Obama” underlined user generated support for Obama during his 2008 campaign.

With this information it seems hard not to conclude that SNS played an influential part in the 2008 and 2012 Presidential elections, and has set the standard for future elections.  Will SNS eliminate television ads, journalistic interviews, and debates?  Probably not; in fact it should be used in conjunction with these grassroots styles of campaigning.  What this style of grassroots campaigning using SNS can do is, cut down on some of the mailings, flyers, and door-hangers constituents receive, and throw away.  Campaign funds can be generated and information can be transferred faster.  Social Network Sites allow constituents to simply read it then delete it.    

 

                                                                 Reference Page

Aregbe‘s, Farouk. Facebook group. One Million Strong for Barack. Retrieved  June 10, 2012.

             http:/www.facebook.com/group.php

Garecht, Joe. (2010)  Local Victory. Using Social Media In Your Campaign, Retrieved June 10, 2013.
             http://www.localvictory.com/communications/political-social-media

Graber, Doris. (2010). Mass Media and American Politics

Karpf, David. (2010). Policy & Internet, Vol. 2, No. 4, 7-41

Negroponte N. 1995. Being Digital. New York: Knopf

President‘s Obama‘s Facebook fan page. Retrieved  June 10, 2012. 

 http://www.facebook.com/#!/barackobama

Social Network Sites and Politics. (2012, March)   Pew Research Center.                          Retrieved June 10, 2013.                                                     
            http://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/internet/research-internet-effects-        politics-key-studies

 

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