What political blog means

Looking at any election happening at the moment we can see how along with website and video advertisement blog is a tool that has become the central point of modern day political campaign. It namely provides an image of the candidates openness to the communication with the individual voter. The political candidates Blogs are written so that they emphasise the availability of the candidate and the personalised experiences of the candidate with his voters. These are presented on pictures, on videos and there are even interviews with them, we can see their full names, their faces and how passionately they think about their candidate.

But Blog is of even greater importance to the PR people leading the campaign, the blog provides them with the possibility that at any time they can respond to any happenings. They are able to post any developments or issue statements and not only as the PR team of the campaign but in the name of the candidate.
That there is a lot of energy being put into the blog postings on the candidate sites, can be seen by the sheer number of post on them and how they vary in their content. As claimed by Croteau and Hoynes
The media’s influence on a hundred politicians has much more significant effect and pronounced implications that their influence on a hundred regular voters. It is insiders- politicians, lobbyists, campaign managers, financial contributors, and so forth- who pay closest attention to, and are most likely to be influenced by, the media. Nowhere is this more evident that in the changes in political campaigns in response to media coverage.

Blogs are designed so that on them various different interested profiles can get the information they might sought after. From the posts that focus on pictures to the newspaper clippings, speeches, and event commentaries can all be found there.

Blogs in political campaigns, we could say, are formed so that they combine the most accurate information about the policy of the candidate (composed so that they leave no space for misinterpretation), that they show the closeness of the candidate to his constituencies and his familiarity of the problems they have. Alongside to these information serious PR elements are added intended for the journalists to be able to get them and also that they take in the consideration the previously mentions personality features of the candidate.

You tube and lost videos

As I have been informed by professor Jankowski, the video I have posted in my last post, was no longer available trough the link I have provided. As I promised then I have tried to find the same video but I was not successful. It was as if the video disappeared, it obviously too aggressive and as it had a very strong biblical sub tone it must have been perceived as offensive. I have noticed several times trough the past several months that there were videos that have been removed from the you tube and their links suspended. These mainly were all crossing that thin line of good taste which in politics is so difficult to find. I am sorry for not making a transcript of the text that was used in the video, as it was a perfect example of over the line negative campaign. Just to show you where I believe that the inspiration for that video really came from i want you to have a look at the first negative ad titled "The One" posted by the McCain campaign. Just listen how Obama is shown as a sort of a messiah and that at the end there is the movie "the Ten Commandments" staring Charlton Heston as Moses.

You tube: Barack obama in the Biblical maner

Who is fighting the presidential campaign on the Youtube

As I have been trying to keep up with all of the different videos connected with the democratic primary elections there is one video that keeps popping up on regardless what search I make. The Obama girl video has seemed as a very ingenious advertising of the Senator Barack Obama’s campaign. It has since it has appeared caused a flooding of video replays and a whole line of videos starring “something Girls”. The Obama girl phenomenon has made a very strong impact on the elections of 2008 as it I think combines all of the features of a good political campaign. It has a clear message, it is noticed by people reaching vast crowds (The I have a crush on Obama video is one of the most viewed on the Youtube with 7,595,224 views) and it is still interesting and continuing to be a part of the debate. The basic elements are obvious a model dressed in a minimal outfit and a catchy tune mixed with politics and posted on the Youtube. I have therefore taken some time to make an overview of the videos with related topics and decided to present to you some:

Starting with The original I got a crush on Obama video:

This is the sequel of the I got a crush on Obama video and is aimed at Hillary Clinton and her campaign. Trough the video you can actually see all of the debated issues of the campaign at the time and positions of the traditional media and presenting Obamagirl as a user of Internet, being one of the members of the new generation of voters.



And the Super ObamaGirl video made for super Tuesday,



There are similar videos made by the same company called barely political who have produced a hole series of related and similar videos , but which I want to avoid at the time. But I want you to see some of the Girls of the opposition.

Why do social networks scare me?

During the past six months most of my friends and acquaintances started their facebook accounts and as a consequence I have been listening over and over the reasons why I should join and how this is a “must have” in the XXI century. It all appeared a bit strange as only a few months ago I have had the same kind of conversations with more or less same people on the necessity of using mySpace. Listening to the argumentations such as how it permits you to stay in touch with people you know from abroad, how this is a sign of being socially active in the age of the internet (while showing me graphs of how ones contacts are interconnected amongst themselves and how often they are in contact, etc.), and the very important one, you can upload and look at photos.

But after almost caving in to making an account with this new miraculous, fashionable and free social network site, due to the vast number of arguments and peer pressure I all off a sudden started to get different kind of messages. Several friends started to complain to me how they are fed up of being bothered by strange and unknown people. This is the point I became really sceptical of this new technology. First of all I have been experimenting with photography for around eight years now and there were many photos I would like to share with other people, but I don’t want anyone stealing them and using them with out my knowledge. Now this question for me was a very big one as I have been looking at the time at how could I preserve the especially digital photos in case of a computer failure, but the idea exposing my photos to the whole internet made me look for different alternatives.

The second problem I encountered was when I thought that if I am not prepared to expose my photos why I would want to expose any other information. As if there is not enough cases of abused identities on the internet, people were now voluntarily posting all kind of information onto the internet often for all to see just for the fun of it. I know that it may seen a bit paranoyed but I can easily see someone slowly gathering information and using it for a scheme or in case of photos even for blackmail, as people really post everything up there, and we shall see if all of a sudden people start getting panic over photos they made and got published years ago.

The third argument for why I’m not on facebook came just a few days ago and has confirmed most of my greatest fears and that is that it is impossible to get out of facebook, which means that you can freeze your account but at any given moment you can reactivate it. Or put in a different way what you put on the internet stays on the internet. Worried?

P.S.
I have decided to write this coment after reading the article Social Network Sites: Definition, History and Scolarship by Boyd and Ellison and remembering the debate we had with professor Jankowski when drinking beer one evening. And we got there without the use of invitations trough facebook.

The Answer to Maja's comment

Maja thank you for your comment, I have been thinking of very similar things and have tried to find out if this was actually a part of any official campaign, but so far I was unable to find any proof that it was so. I have tried to get any facts and that is whay it has taken me somewhat longer to naswer to your comment.

What I am getting more and more convinced is that this advertisement is or a spoof which besides making strange insinuations is probably also in violation of the copyrights and trade mark legislation.

Law suits in such cases are very complicated if such an advert is not published in printed media as it is very hard to determine who made such an advert, why and how it got on the internet. Just remember all of the cases in which materials were claimed to have been stolen or published by mistake. After all just remember the very recent event in which a document disappeared from the Slovene foreign ministry and somehow found its way onto the first pages of magazines and still it is not clear what happened and who is responsible.

As soon I will get any new information I will let you know.

Best regards,

Jan

Primary elections in service of advertising

I came across this yesterday while looking for vlogs and I know it is not directly what I set my self to find but I found it fascinating. There are two possible messages to be seen here, the first is the obvious fact that Hillary Clinton is wearing it opponents badge, showing her as fearless of the opposition. The other fact is that Axe is a product intended for men...