Technology Makes Politics Possible
The evolution of modern technology has accompanied every variable political landscape in elections for countries across the globe. In the past few years, technology and social media platforms have proven to be instrumental in the outcome of elections. In fact, some commentators attribute former President Obama’s landmark win in 2008 to his campaign’s pervasive use of social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
Internet and technology have played a major role in spreading different parties’ messages. The first major breakthrough in the cross-talk between technology and political stance occurred with the creation of the GOP internet forum Free Republic in February 1997. Inspired by the success of this forum, the Bush campaign utilized phone bank technology as well as email lists in 2000 for a get-out-the-vote initiative. With the help of additional marketing tools, the Bush campaign was able to compile a database of 700,000 potential voters. In addition to allowing more widespread dispersal of general ideologies, technology has also served as a smoother intermediary between campaigns and the press’s portrayal of them. In the Jeremiah Wright controversy during the 2008 election season, Obama’s campaign strategically released videos on YouTube presenting Obama’s stances on racial issues. Technology has thus given candidates opportunities to further broadcast their political stances and express their personal opinions on various issues.
Not only does novel technology allow the chance for candidates to elucidate their platforms, but it also enables political “pundits” to disseminate their own opinion on a national level. Starting in 2002, the creation of political blogs and forums gained further momentum with the advent of websites such as InstaPundit and My DD. These blogs and other online websites were soon regarded as credible especially when Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos became the first blogger to be given press credentials for a Democratic National Convention. The widely acclaimed strategy of establishing political blogs or websites, called “netroots,” has now become a relatively commonplace cornerstone for a multitude of campaigns. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube all buzz with political propaganda and related content especially due to the recent election season. YouTube featured an overwhelming 110 million hours of watched content in the 2016 presidential election season by March. Now, thanks to the internet, among other technologies, anyone can easily share their political opinions and have quite a lot of options of doing so.
Although technology’s effect on elections seems to be conducive to the most rational decisions made by the public, social media platforms like Facebook are now being blamed for spreading fake news especially in the wake of the recent U.S. presidential election. However, according to a study by Stanford, only 16 percent of those surveyed replied that they used social media platforms for their news at a frequent rate. Instead of blaming technology for this merely tenuous link to the swaying of electoral results, many of us should be thankful that we have the internet and other benefits derived from the rapid evolution of technology to aid us in spreading our opinions and collaborating over the welfare of the nation. If anything, technology and politics go hand-in-hand when it comes to giving voices to the public and to those assigned to govern.