Free Essay: Social Media and the Election of the President Barack Obama

Communication is the core of a political campaign, and it allows presidential contenders to relay their messages and build support. Support is translated to grassroots mobilization, monetary contributions and ultimately votes. As such, candidates are compelled to adopt latest mediums that supply efficient and effective mass-communication. These forms of communication mediums, although readily available, have been complicated by the introduction of technology. Similar to emerging mediums, social media gives candidates the ability to control and tailor messaging and the capacity to reach a broad audience than it was possible in the past. By embracing the new role of social media, President Barack Obama was able to take advantage of the recent advances in the communication technology to relay his messages to the electorate directly without the influences of the impressive traditional new media. In the paper, the role of social media in the American history is examined based on the 2008 presidential election of the United States. It is conjectured that the historic Barrack Obama's election to the position of the U.S. President was an outcome of a practical choice of communication media.

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Barrack Obama, a son of Ann and Barack Obama Sr., was born on fourth of August in the year 1961. His parent happened to have met in Hawaii where they were pursuing their education. When Obama was two years old, his father, a Kenyan citizen, returned to his native country after completing his studies at the University of Harvard only to meet his death nineteen years later after succumbing to injuries from a road accident. Having been left alone, Obama's mother remarried Lolo Soetoro, who was also a student in the same campus and an Indonesia foreigner. Obama Jr. attended Muslim and Catholic schools while at Indonesia, where he lived with his mother and stepfather. Obama's mother was so concerned with the education of her son such that he was forced to send him to Hawaii, Madelyn, where he stood a better chance of uplifting himself. He was enrolled at Hawaii prestigious school and while at the same school, her mother again divorced with Lolo and came back to Hawaii to further her studies. Obama's hard work enable him to be the first editor in 1990 when he attended the school of law. He got married to Michelle Obama while teaching the law school of Chicago. (Aaker, Jennifer L, et al., 2).

The passion Obama had for the technology was an upside in the race for the presidency in the historic 2008 election. He transformed how people perceive and use technology as a communication tool. It was revealed in the email by Trippi that the MYBO, which was then a social networking site for Obama, had 104,000 Texan as members of his network. In that site, Obama had displayed his achievements, background, and aspirations to the public, and many people had an opportunity to peruse them. The MYBO initiative encouraged more Texans to contribute and energize Obama's campaign, motivated by the effective use of the media platforms to communicate his change message. Texans needed no convincing to register on the site, an initiative that boosted the Obama's campaign. The site presented a base to set up a fund drive to oil the campaign machines, which are typically expensive and almost impossible to sustain by word of mouth alone. The MYBO served as a network to the White House in 2008 and was instrumental to the recapturing of the second term in 2012.

In February 2007, Barack Obama declared his intention to take a stab at the Presidency for 2008 election. He was eventually locked in a tight fight with John Macain, formerly an American soldier. The battle that preceded was a fierce and competitive fight for Democratic delegates between him and Hillary Clinton, then the New York senator. On 3rd of June 2008, Barack became the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party after leading the Democratic Party primaries with a significant size of the pledged delegates. Clinton, therefore, gave her full backing to Obama, which seemed substantial for a tight race. During the election of 4th November 2008, Barack defeated John McCain, a presidential nominee who was a Republican. He won with 52.9% to 45.7% and managed to become the United States 44th president. He also became first African-American President of the United States. Senator Joe Biden who was his running mate became his vice president. It was on 20th January 2009 when Barack Obama's inauguration was conducted. In a campaign where racism was the underlying theme, social media happened to the platform for public discourse.

The Obama's campaign for presidential election in the year 2008 made history of the United States. He was not only the first American- African to win the presidential seat, but he also became the first candidate who effectively used the social media as the primary strategy for the campaign. Obama could post frequent reminders over the Twitter and often interacted with the citizens on Facebook. Many people embraced social media from the influences they received for the heated campaign. In 2008, about 37% of the citizens had their profiles on the social media. In the 2012 election, the use of social media had widely expanded. The Obama's competitor McCain was defeated mainly because his team failed to incorporate social media into the marketing approach to campaigns effectively. Barack Obama had already come up with a machine for social media and had similar expectation from his team on the same. Romney campaign as well was not a match for Obama's, as the social media mainly deals with relationship and Barack had already outreached many citizens. He dominated the space on the social media since his team had learned how the networks were working.

Typically, the strength of the social media is in the engagement of the user and not the Tweets or the size of a post. For instance, Obama received double the number of Facebook that what his 2012 competitor Mitt Romney managed. He also managed to get as many re-tweets as his competitor had combined. Currently, the social media is an essential part of people's lives all over the world. The social media aim to educate, entertain, for interaction purposes and the passing of the information. The social media is presented in many forms which are related for instance the blogs, social bookmarking, photo sharing and the videos. The campaign team of Obama was everywhere in the social media. YouTube, Twitter, Flickr and the Facebook became the main sites. The founder of these media site was Chris Hughes, who worked for the campaign. Obama's team ensured mobilization of the Obamas supporters and the communities. They registered about 1.5 million individuals using myBarackObama.com. Notably, the team also manage to raise roughly $600 from approximately three million citizens. The campaign of Obama built a permissible database of 3 million volunteers and in return for the promise of change. Barack Obama implemented alternative strategies and would ensure that his supporters were receiving the campaign news before taking them to the media. They did so even before the announcement of his running mate Joe Biden.

Obama was active in newsrooms, engaging in heated discussions with the primary donors to secure funding, account that was always scared to the public via social media. The social media is mainly build up for communication and not publications. With the realization of this, Obama ensured his victory through sturdily engaging himself directly through the conversation over the media with his friends, families and other contacts. The reality is that sharing of information, ideas, and opinions with our close relatives and friends act as a trusted network. These individuals also ensure the spread of the message concerning his stab at and campaign for the presidential seat.

Tracing back to the history of President Kennedy who is widely known as the first television president, this is true for President Obama as he became the first president to appear on the social media. Before taking office, Barack was already rooted to Blackberry. He had a passion for technology and science and that assisted him to pressurize his government to manage the public communication and engage themselves with the digital tools and services. What the people loved about the relationship of Obama with the technology was that it was more of their own. Barack became relatable with it, and he even grips his phone just like anyone else. The most targeted individuals were the youths. The use of text message and the Twitter became favorite means of communicating with the audience. The supporters of Obama had different functions; there was those who individually responsible for receiving the text messages from the audience and the updates of the campaign. Notably, they won the public appearance, the local events and making reminders to voters. They were doing so by sending the messages directly through the mobile phones to the targeted youths. The Obama's campaign utilized the means of communication which were familiar to his targeted audiences. He also managed to overcome some challenges which were associated with the internet. The use of text messages became an innovative means to get to regions with no landlines and had minorities below age 30. The method was a cost-effective means as about $ 1.56 per individual got generated when it was compared to the use of phone calls which had posted an approximate price of $ 20 and the use of the door to door movement costing $ 30. Twitter got used by about 1/3 of the adult's individuals and over 112000 citizens followed the Twitter updates of Barack.

Obama's campaign had other external influences which enhance his victory. The backers of Obama which exceeded 1 million signed up for the application and permission the drive to check at their list of friends on Facebook and invited them for the support. About 85 percent with no listed phone numbers were found in the friend list uploaded by the influenced individuals. The campaign needed the effort which posted a target sharing. In the final weeks of battle, the team mobilized all those who had signed to share the message with the friends by clicking of the button. Supporter exceeding 600000 followed and about 5 million contacts asking their close friend to register as voters.

While in the office, Obama made remarkable history Republic of the united states. Before taking his second term in the year 2012, what he had already accomplished had made him the best president of the States. In eight years of presidency, Obama managed to make 28 accomplishment to the united states. Firstly he saved the nation from the recession, and lower the rate of unemployment from 10% to about 4.7% for the first six years. He signed the act of affordable care that brought the insurance of health care to many American s citizens. The war which had existed between America and Iraq got ended thought the leadership of President Obama. He also gave orders which aimed to the capture of Osama Bin Laden.

The fight of LGBT community for the equality in marriage receive support from the leadership of Barack. The reinvestment and the America recovery act got passed by Obama and gave a subsidy of $787 billion to enhance the process. President Barack Obama ordered the sentence of about 1200 offenders of drugs. Before getting into power, the nation was industrially impoverished and he, therefore, saved the country and promoted more industries. President Obama signed childhood arrival deferred action, and that enabled many individuals staying in the States illegally to escape deportation and get the work permits. He started the normalizing relation process with Cuba and increased the sectors for funding the veteran affairs. Obama raised the standard for...