Week One: Impact of the internet

The internet had a huge impact on the 2008 presidential campaign, both by use of internet resources directly by the candidates, as well as an increase in the use of the internet by political pundits, professional and self-appointed, to either support their candidate of choice or decry the opposition. Non-traditional internet media, such as blogs like the Drudge Report, had a much greater voice in the 2008 campaign than in any previous election. A lot more people, particularly the young, are getting their news and information from the internet, whether it be sports scores sent to their phones from ESPN.com, or news headlines from CNN.com, or simply turning to Google to find out what things that they hear in the news are all about.

The Spartan Internet Political Performance (SIPP) Index (http://www.spartaninternet.com/2008/) tracked the internet performance of each candidate in the 2008 election. It is not surprising that Barack Obama is shown to have taken an early lead in the standings, eventually outperforming his competition by almost double. Obama clearly made excellent use of the internet to organize and motivate a legion of mostly young, first-time voters. This grassroots campaign was mostly set up and maintained using the internet, incorporating blogs, networking sites, and messaging services. Obama held an all on-line townhall meeting, and used the internet to speak directly to young voters in a language that they understood.

As mentioned in the text, the concepts of google-bombing and google-washing became prevelant in the run-up to the 2008 election. The fact that these tactics were even concieved, let alone implemented, is testament to the power that google specifically, and the internet in general, has over influencing the hearts and minds of the American voter.

After all, you're reading this in the internet, right?