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Candidates Used New Media to Attract Young Voters

by Jordan Stover
01/03/2009

In this year’s presidential election, candidates used new media to reach young voters more than ever before.

Both Senators John McCain, R-Ariz and Barack Obama, D-Ill used social media such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter to campaign and attract younger voters.

According to a study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, two-thirds of voters under the age of 30 have a social networking profile. Half of those use social networking sites to get or share information about politics or campaigns.

“Candidates open themselves up to young voters through the use of MySpace and Facebook,” said Kristin English, a public relations communications instructor at the University of Georgia who conducts research on political communication. “It’s important for candidates to use media formats their potential voters are familiar with and depend on.”

Social media provides candidates with the opportunity to interact with voters. On Facebook candidates can post pictures, videos, blogs, and links which users can view and comment on.

According to Ruthann Lariscy, a Public Relations professor at the University of Georgia, President-elect Obama capitalized on this opportunity more than his opponent.

“Obama’s online presence was more interactive, more user-friendly,” Lariscy said. “McCain’s was passive and not as youth-oriented.”

Obama’s online presence was much greater than McCain’s and so was his support. Obama had over 6 million supporters on Facebook where McCain had only about 600,000.

The overwhelming support of Obama on social networking sites is not surprising since 63 percent of voters under the age of 30 supported Obama, according to a November Gallup poll.

Despite all of the information available about candidates on social media, a lot of users only used their profiles to publicly support the candidate that they already liked.

“I didn’t get information on the candidates on Facebook,” said Dani Morgan, a sophomore at Berry College. “I only used it to support McCain by adding his page to my profile and changing my status to ‘McCain/Palin’ near election day.”

However, some users did use the information available on social media to learn about the candidates.

“I used Facebook to get information about the election,” said Julie Yeomans, a senior at UGA. “I watched the videos and read the notes that they wrote. It felt like a more personal way of getting to know the candidates.”

MySpace offered more general information on the election than specific information on the candidates. However, it did allow candidates to do things such as post blogs and videos.

Facebook and MySpace also offer dialogic opportunities for users to engage in political debates and discuss the issues both on the candidates’ pages and their own profiles. Many users posted statuses supporting a particular candidate and within minutes had several responses from friends expressing their feelings about the subject.

Another form of social media that candidates used was Twitter. Twitter is a web site where users can constantly give updates on what they are doing. Users can also subscribe to other users’ profiles to watch what they are doing and engage in conversations.

Obama’s campaign used Twitter, but according to English they failed to use the site to its full potential.

Obama only used Twitter to inform the public of his upcoming events such as debates and appearances. He did not really as a way to interact with potential voters following him on the site.

Despite the fact that Obama did not use Twitter as effectively as he could have, he still had an advantage over McCain. McCain joined Twitter after Obama and had significantly less followers.

Obama’s campaign had another technological misstep with the use of text messaging. Obama had supporters sign up to have his campaign send them a text message when he chose his vice presidential candidate so that they would be the first to know.

This plan backfired when people got the text message in the middle of the night after they had already found out who he chose for his vice president from the major news outlets.

According to English, the text messaging incident hurt Obama in the short term. She said that it he spent too much time publicizing it and not enough time backing it up. However, English said that the incident did not hurt him in the long run.

English also said that despite the fact that Obama’s attempt to use text messaging failed, she believes that candidates will continue to use it in the future.

Another form of new media that was popular among young voters during this election was YouTube. Both Obama and McCain set up their own YouTube channels and posted videos for their campaigns.

As with social media, Obama’s presence on YouTube significantly outweighed McCain’s. Obama’s campaign posted over 1,800 videos—over five times the amount that the McCain campaign posted.

Obama also severely outnumbered McCain in the amount of views and comments that his videos received.

On YouTube, candidates have to worry about videos posted by other users as well as the videos that they posted themselves. According to a report by Pew Internet, political candidates have to monitor the videos posted by others that could be harmful to their campaign.

However, Pew also reported that it is likely that YouTube material had a greater impact when it was amplified by the parties and mainstream media.

In this year’s election, candidates also used blogs as a way to communicate with younger voters. Many young voters relied on blogs from the candidates as well as blogs from other news sites to get information about the election.

“I read blogs more than I watched the news,” said Jordan Stepp, a junior at UGA. “I read Obama’s blog on his web site, blogs from other news sites, and blogs from my professors.”

Both Obama and McCain provided blogs on their web sites as well as posting them to social media sites. Obama has a blog section on his web site, my.barackobama.com, where his campaign posts updates and YouTube videos.

John McCain blogged on his web site as well, but he also provided links to other political blogs. The links he provided were from both conservative and liberal organizations.

While McCain and Obama both had their own blogs, Obama still had a greater presence in the blogosphere than did McCain.

According to a report by ReadWriteWeb, Obama was mentioned in close to 500 million blogs. McCain was mentioned in only about 150 million blogs online.

New media played a huge role in both McCain and Obama’s effort to campaign to young voters. English estimates that the use of new media had at least some impact on the turnout of young voters.

“There’s no way to tell for sure until the data is analyzed,” said English. “But I would guess that there was some impact, I’m just not sure at what level.”

Although McCain used the same forms of new media as Obama, Obama used them more effectively. Obama’s web sites were more user-friendly and he had much more online support than McCain.

English believes that candidates will continue to use new media in the future to communicate with potential voters. She said that candidates will continue to use the same features, especially the ones that worked for them.

According to English, new media will continue to be a crucial aspect of daily life, including politics.

For this year’s election campaigning to young voters with new media was crucial. It will be even more important in the future as more and more Americans are coming to rely on the Internet for information. English said that new media allows candidates to communicate with young voters in a format that they are familiar with and often prefer.

According to ReadWriteWeb, candidates will ignore new media at their own risk. As Obama demonstrated in 2008, using new media and using it effectively can have an impact on young voters.