A couple of weeks ago, Dr. Anna Everett joined us at the Libraries to present on “Diversity, Social Media and the Where U @? Generation.” I had the distinct pleasure of having lunch with her, and feel I should publicly thank her for leading me to the hook I needed to resurrect a paper I had long considered dead.
During the 2008 presidential campaign, I wrote a paper on Barack Obama’s use of social media. I never managed to get the paper revised to a degree that I felt comfortable submitting it anywhere, so, it’s been sitting in my research folder for a few years, taunting me. “You’re going to require more discipline if you want to be a real scholar,” it seemed to say.
As Dr. Everett and I talked, I began to realize that the 2012 election season will be another interesting one to watch, and will afford me the opportunity to resurrect and build on this work. Barack Obama built on Howard Dean’s 2004 use of the internet and social media to reach out to voters. Both of them, however, played somewhat of an underdog role during those elections. Obama obviously did a better job connecting with more voters. How, though, is his strategy going to change now that he’s the guy in office?
Naturally, “change we can believe in” is something that’s easy to say when you’re railing against the man, but it’s a harder sell when you are the man. And, while the message will most certainly have to change, the use of media just might as well. Obama has brought us Twitter town halls, YouTube updates from the White House, a more sophisticated looking White House web site and a lot more, but I am interested to see how the rhetorical and media strategies differ now that we have our first social media incumbent.