In 2006-2007, facebook, twitter, youtube, and countless other social mediums were finally being used to their full potential as networking/mass communication engines. These sites were not just platforms for kids and fun now—they had become realized as an invaluable tool for any kind of business, group, event, when used as a way to communicate with fans, customers, etc…
Obama’s use of online networking sites was bold (would we take a candidate seriously who used youtube and twitter to promote himself?), but obviously worked well, considering his large hip-to-technology audience. In Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, the author explains this as “how the bias of a medium sits heavy…over a culture,” (18), telling our reliance on social sites for information.
Plus, he had campaign “songs”—he’s gotta be a good guy if he listens to music like we do right? A musical intro to a speech heightens our emotional limbic brain—a good persuasion tactic
2. TIMING
When Barack Obama began running for president, there was a general consensus that this would not be just another American election. What I don’t think our country has fully realized until after his victory is how Obama has changed the campaign process completely. Like Paul Street describes in his book Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics, Obama’s success was in part due to his well-timed decision to run for president. While Street lists reasons like what other politicians were doing at the time, allowing Barack the chance, another huge factor in this “timing” theory is where our communication technology was and how it was being developed and used. In Street’s book, according to Washington Post writer Liza Mundy, at the time the Democratic party was looking for a new candidate with newness/youth, someone from the mid-west to balance their “reign”, needed to get that open senate seat, Michigan gov. Jennifer Granholm wasn’t up for reelection, and Obama was running for that seat. So it was simple—a Democratic Party Official said, “ ‘So Obama it was,’” (Street 24).
3. LOGO/TYPE
The use of his logo was an easy solution that I don’t think any other president has actually used before…has anyone else really had a logo (bumper stickers with your name on it don’t count)? This, along with the consistent use of typography that accompanied his “brand”? Brilliant. Honestly, that’s just brilliant. Wikipedia has a nice run down of all the reasons Obama succeeded in the media, and there are many articles on Obama’s media presence, and I found this great one-liner on a blog-ish type article stating: “We are, afterall, Barack Obama's greatest customers.”
Image courtesy of DesignForObama.orgWe don’t want to listen to the issues anymore. We want to see something pretty, something catchy, and something we can stick on our laptops, binders, and car windows that’s visually “cool”. In Neil Postman’s book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, he starts off with discussing our shortened attention span, as Americans, since the time before TV and radio and our need for seeing something “pretty.” He gives Nixon’s example who “claimed he lost an election because he was sabotaged by make-up men,” (Postman 4)—and that was only the start of our superficial ways of seeing politics.
His campaign has proven to other politicians, that, for better or for worse, if you want the American people to like you (for any reason or no reason at all), you must level with them online—create a brand, hire a marketing professional or two, hire a good designer, and develop your PR. You are, in fact, selling yourself to us.
4. "BLACK" PRESIDENT
Image courtesy of UDoTheDishes.comApparently, Obama is our first black president. I only say apparently, because his “black-ness” is sort of disputed. Paul Street recognizes this in his book as well and his point is: while his skin color drew attention and appeal from many white and black voters in the US, his stance on policies speak differently. There’s a majority of black citizens in the US that share similar positions on certain issues, and Obama tends to be the complete opposite. While Obama supports his fellow African-American’s, he also is tough on the welfare issue—which many inner city blacks use the welfare system.
To some American’s, a “black” president isn’t the color of the candidate’s skin, but their supposed stance on the issues. Toni Morrison called Clinton the “first black president,” because he stood similarly on certain issues that many of our black population did. He drew a lot of support from our African-American communities that way—with Obama, we are only seeing the way he looks and not the way he thinks. The thing is, both Clinton and Obama believe that inner city African-Americans have few people to blame for their own lives.
5. CELEB APPEAL
Along with being president, Obama has become a celebrity—yes just like the Hollywood kind. My #1 and #3 revelations are evidence/causes of this. When you’re branded and are my facebook friend/I follow you on twitter, you have stepped out of the realm of “boring politics” and now I’ll listen. The amount of articles I have read on “Obama’s Secret Hobby,” or “Michelle’s New Kitten Heels,” is outstanding. I actually have to search for the news, instead of it being right in front of me.
Though newspaper have changed too since the days of the “typographic mind” (Postman 30), they are still a good source for the legitimate news…but Censored 2011 says that “daily newspaper reading in the US has declined from 58 percent in 1993 to 34 percent in 2008,” (Censored 356),” so where are we getting our news? We fill up on info-tainment and then have no room/interest in the real issues. I’m not saying this is Obama’s fault—we read what we want to read.
6. PEACE CANDIDATE?
Obama is gonna stop the war! Obamma is gonna bring our troops home!
Well…it was sort of half true.
Like Paul Street said Obama never claim to be any kind of anti-war—he’s “no peace candidate,” (Street 139), but for some reason his “Hope” and “Change” campaign felt like an anti-war, peace campaign to most Americans. While many troops stationed in Iraq have come home, we are still in the midst of an “war”. Obama isn’t much different than Bush—he knows that sometimes we must use “unilateral force” to protect our country. I’m unsure where Obama was tagged the “peace candidate,” but Ron Paul was the only true peace candidate in the election.
7. PLAIN FOLK APPEAL
A useful way our President appealed to the public in his campaign was by using a persuasive method called “Plain Folk”. We need someone to relate to—we want to believe you when you say you’re “just a regular Joe (Plumber Joe?).” I’m still unsure how Obama managed to pull that one off—maybe because he was so new without a long political history. Obama has a lot of money, he went to Harvard, he wrote a book that was published…
In Street’s book an interesting point is quoted and that’s ’…for a political leader to get things done, he or she should ideally be ahead of the curve, but not too far ahead,’ ” (Street 165)—this is exactly what we’re all looking for. Oh, and I thought this was pretty funny…
8. PERFECT[LY TAILORED] SPEECHES
Barack is known for his drawing in of diverse crowds for his campaign speeches. Crucial to getting the most votes, he strove to capture the attention and votes of all different kinds of voters. Obviously any candidate wants to do this, but Obama had a way of sort-of “tailoring” his speeches to the group he was talking to, as Street recognizes in his book. How can you do this without changing your viewpoints for every crowd? Simple Solutions. This is actually one persuasive technique Obama used consistently during his campaign—though it could have just been that vagueness was Obama’s safety. Postman captures this idea in his Peek-a-Book World chapter—we want bullet points, not detailed explanations. Postman’s also discusses The Typographic Mind explaining that the Age of Exposition has ended and the Age of Show Business has taken over (Postman 63). We are now in an “Image-centered culture,” (Postman 61), where learning from television is different from learning from reading. Television lets us sample Obama’s bullet points, between admiring him and listening to his pre-speech music. If we were to read about his plans we would find them much too vague to make a voting decision.
9. BIG MONEY
Obama said he wouldn't take money from big corporate. He promised this.
Well....he sorta lied. During his fundraising, he accepted lots of money from enormous companies like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan. An article discussing Obama's "Lobbyist Line" says that the President has a different definition of "accepting money" and that, actually, he accepts money from big corporate (including many Oil companies).
10. PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN
Street claims that when Obama "peppers his speeches" (Street 171) with an idealized vision of American, the president is actually shadowing over our imperialistic and violent history. Is Obama really trying to cover up American's dirty not-so-secret secret? I don't think so--he is just being patriotic...which is a great way to get crowds all riled up at speeches. Obama played the patriot card well during his campaign. Though he was questioned about his lack of an American flag pin (semantics? just forgot?), he has always had a way to make a crowd hopeful about our country, instead of seeing a grim future.
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