The genial idea of Barack Obama

       It was very interesting to read the article "Barack Obama: organizing for America 2.0", written by Laura Winig. Deep analysis of 2008 presidential campaign was done impartial, unbiased and with well-selected data.

       

       The U.S. President Richard Nixon, speaking at the National Security Council  on budget spending, said: "one dollar invested in information and propaganda, is more valuable than ten dollars invested in the creation of weapons systems, because the latter is unlikely to ever be used in an affair, while the information works hourly and everywhere". Probably, by taking into consideration the words of R.Nixon and adapting it to modern conditions, the Obama team brought the idea to a new level. They invested $425 million, almost three times more than McCain did. Social media became a main target of presidential campaign with which they intended to reach out every potential voter through Internet. Two websites launched in one day: My.BarackObama.com and BarackObama.com, became a catalyst for organizing and mobilizing volunteers around the country. Visiting website you have opportunities to join 20 different public groups. As a result, more than 2 million people registered on these sites, formed 35,000 groups, posted 400,000 blog posts.

    

     I think that creation of a new social network for candidate promotion was a genial idea. Another look at the power of the Internet allowed to organize work with volunteers in new two-way communication. Modern people don't want just to receive information, they want to communicate with candidates, to share their ideas and participate in political life. Interaction through social media created trust relationship between Obama and the voters that had never existed before in other election campaigns. The people started to believe that government could be more transparent, more accessible. As a conclusion, I can argue that social media became a new power which can not be ignored by politicians anymore.