Political campaigns and Social Media

There are many positive and negative aspects of utilizing social media such as YouTube for political gains. YouTube has allowed people to share full-motion video online which has enabled a much wider audience of varied demographics to access and contribute to the political sphere. With increasing technology which is targeting a younger audience platforms such as YouTube are lower cost and have a higher impact than traditional media forms such as television. The downfall to platforms such as YouTube is that it allows the individual to manipulate materials through freedom of expression which can have a negative impact on the content at hand. For example political figures can become the subject of ridicule through satire and parodies. With mainstream media outlets such as news channels they are often biased and although they can and do portray negative sides to political figures they are not usually in the same form as that of parodies and satire. Germany (2008) which looked at the politician, ' John Edwards,' revealed that on his website only approximately 166,000 people viewed his video launch in the two years prior to election. Whereas with Obama a video that was released on YouTube, 'Robots Attack,' attracted this amount in the first 24 hours of its launch.

It just goes to show that by releasing a political video on YouTube can reach a far greater number of people than that on a political website. Now of course this does compare Obama who was and is of great interest and Edwards who was running for Presidency but it still goes to show that people are much more likely to access YouTube for videos. However perhaps there should be concern that the most popular video on YouTube with John Edwards is the one below..... what does this do for his reputation??!!
(Note that this is not the original video with the high views as it was not available for embedding!)
There is a decline in political awareness and following in younger generations and as YouTube is popular with younger people it does make accessing the information more appealing.

MISHACHARLIE ACKNOWLEDGES THE USE OF CONTENT:

http://www.youtube.com

Germany, J. B. 2009, ‘The Online Revolution’ in D. W. Johnson (Ed.) Campaigning for President: Strategies and Tactics, New Voices and New Techniques, Taylor and Francis eLibrary, UK. pp 147-159 (Electronic Resource Library Catalogue)