By Dan Jellinek.
The campaign to elect Barack Obama to the White House represented a revolution in the US political system, Phil Noble, founder of US e-campaign consultants PoliticsOnline and an advisor both to the Obama campaign and his White House administration, told this year’s World Forum on e-Democracy in Paris (http://www.edemocracy-forum.com/).
“What he has done is take the power of the internet to empower people to do what they want, and direct it, empowering tens of millions of Americans to participate in our political process in ways they never had before.”
But the true impact of Obama’s embracing of the internet was yet to come, as his former campaign team settles into the business of government, said Noble.
“The Obama campaign online was run by about a hundred 20-something-year-old kids. Those people are now moving into government.
“Given eight years, if he is re-elected, we are going to see massive changes, particularly into the fifth, sixth and seventh years, because they are focusing on putting information online, and on putting infrastructure into government with which people can make the kind of changes they did in the campaign.”
The impact of this is likely to be even more radical than the impact of the campaign on the political process, said Noble.
Overall, Obama “is going to do for the internet what John Kennedy did for television: he defined how to use it in a political context,” he said. “Kennedy defined the values of media politics of his time across the world, and I think we’re going to see a similar impact globally of Obama.”
Interestingly, one of the politics session’s other panelists, the French technology writer Francis Pisani who blogs under the title ‘Transnets’ (http://pisani.blog.lemonde.fr/), warned that European politicians should not simply try and ape what Obama achieved online.
“We have a different political system, and he was an outstanding candidate, so what we need to do is to reinvent what he did in a European context,” Pisani said.
Also in Paris was Google, whose political advertising arm was awarded this year’s International e-Democracy award (judged by PoliticsOnline) for the role it played for all parties in the US Presidential campaign (http://www.edemocracy-forum.com/2009/10/awards.html).
Peter Greenburger, director of political advertising at Google, said various Google tools or tools made by Google-owned companies (or ‘Google properties’) had helped to “greatly democratise” the election process by helping citizens seek out information and resources.
First and foremost among those ‘Google properties’ that played a role was YouTube, he said. The Obama campaign alone uploaded more than 1,800 different videos to its free YouTube channel. The online document sharing system ‘Google Docs’ was also used by the campaign because of its facilitation of collaborative working, Greenburger said.
However, perhaps the most interesting use of Google for electioneering has been the use of Google adverts or sponsored links paid to appear alongside specific search terms.
The ability to target search advertising to specific terms means it has been used to instantly address campaign issues, myths or rumours: for example, when a row erupted over the myth that Barack Obama was a Muslim, ad terms were selected so that anyone searching on Barack Obama Muslim would see an ad link placed by his campaign saying ‘the BO Muslim myth – click here to find information about BO’s true background.’
Another example of instant response to spikes in search traffic occurred recently following Republican senator Joe Wilson’s controversial outburst towards the President, “You lie”, during a debate over healthcare reform (he later apologised).
“Within moments, ‘representative Joe Wilson’ and ‘You lie’ were the top search terms on Google, as millions searched for information on the incident,” Greenburger said. “And within minutes, you had Google keyword advertising as well: opponents, Joe Wilson’s own committee, the Democratic National Committee, the Republican National Committee, even people selling ‘You lie’ bumper stickers.”
Search advertising is also being used by all candidates in high profile gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, and in the race for Mayor of New York, Greenburger said. “People are also starting earlier: they used to start two or three months out from election day, now it is six to 12 months out, because campaigns have realised if people are going to look for information early, you better have your information online. We are going to see the ubiquity of search advertising in the US and around the world.”
Overall the Obama campaign spent 7.5 million US Dollars on Google ads in 2008, Greenburger said, and McCain about the same. “But we didn’t see a tremendous amount of activity too much down below the top of the table.”
Some delegates in Issy professed themselves surprised to see a corporation like Google win a democracy prize. In a conference workshop presented by all the winners of this year’s awards, Rolf Luehrs, co-ordinator of the Pan European eParticipation Network (PEP-NET – http://www.pep-net.eu), said he was “astonished” that the firm had been recognised ahead of other citizen-led groups nominated such as democracy activists in Iran and the Bolivian-based Democracy Center aimed at people in the developing world
However Phil Noble defended the choice, saying the number of hits on YouTube videos alone demonstrated the huge positive effect Google was having on politics worldwide.
NOTE: Article originally published in E-Government Bulletin issue 299.
Click here to visit/return to issue 299 index
