Following Barack Obama’s win in 2008, the dominant meme in election campaigning around the western world has been the importance of online campaigning and adopting the model Obama used.
Even in small western countries like Ireland, you find parties and politicians trying to get their taste of the “Obama magic”, with former Obama advisors drawing huge crowds and taking on contracts for political parties all over the world. The best example is the new Fianna Fail website, which was designed by the Blue State Digital firm, who were central to Obama’s online strategy. So how much is the “Obama style” of online campaigning going to revolutionise electioneering across the world, and how much has it been overhyped?
The best example of Obama being overhyped that I have found is in Ireland. The governing Fianna Fail has had a new website developed by former Obama advisors, while a company offers “Obama tools” to candidates in the upcoming local and European elections. Moving past the absurdity of selling a mass campaigning tool to candidates running for a local council, it’s easy to forget that the Obama campaign took place under the leadership of a highly charismatic candidate, who was the first ever credible black candidate, running in a national election in a highly diverse country of 300 million. Just by setting up an interactive website, an incredibly unpopular governing party in a very homogenous country of 3 million is not going to kick off a mass grassroots movement.
The biggest question when considering online campaigning is to consider the constituency, and where they get their election information. We still live in a country where most people get their election news from tabloid newspapers and free-to-air 6pm news. That is changing, and some communities are more interconnnected with the internet than others. An interesting example can be found in student elections being conducted on Facebook. As much as I hate student union elections, I have been interested to see that every candidate in the current University of Sydney Union election has a Facebook group. In an electorate who are almost all online and use Facebook in large numbers, it makes sense to target friends and friends of friends on Facebook. But that’s not the average constituency.
So while forms like blogging, Facebook and Twitter are gradually penetrating further into the electorate, we’re not at a stage where their importance, in terms of gaining votes, is greater than the traditional media.
So if the point of online campaigning is not to win votes, then what is it? If you look closely at the Obama campaign, it’s clear that his online campaign strategy wasn’t targeted at undecided independent voters, it was targeted at his supporters. Obama’s online strategy was effective because it marshalled young, committed supporters and gave them an easy way to become engaged in a campaign and get organised, but this organisation didn’t end online.
The Obama campaign used online tools to get in touch with its supporter base and get them in touch with each other, but they then went offline and worked in their community. Indeed, the strongest role of blogging in the 2008 election wasn’t as a tool to inform the undecided voter, it was as a tool to organise committed Democrats. Websites like Daily Kos and similar left-wing blogs based in individual states focused their energy during the campaign delivering Obama talking points and marshalling their supporters to go offline and campaign.
That is the key to online campaigning: it starts online but it can’t stop there. That is the difficulty for groups like GetUp and various groups promising to create an online campaigning for political parties, unions and NGOs. They have created an effective way to contact their supporters, but are still struggling to link that in with a grassroots network that can carry out that strength. In contrast, groups like the Australian Greens which have always had a strong grassroots network are lagging behind in online strategy. If you could combine those two strengths, it would be very powerful.
The other useful outcome of a successful online strategy is the revolutionising of fundraising. The Obama campaign managed to harness the wallets of hundreds of thousands of supporters, giving people who didn’t have the time or energy to become active politically an opportunity to “do something”. It’s worth noting that one of Obama’s most powerful assets was his phenomenal fundraising capacity, and most of this money was spent on traditional media.
An effective online strategy can connect a campaign with its supporters, harnessing their capacity as fundraisers and organisers, but it can’t build a successful campaign out of thin air.
What influence do you think the US’s voluntary voting system has on Obama targeting just his supporters?
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