In the present times, social media is one such platform which has been useful in connecting the people throughout the world. Be it a personal interaction, a product promotion, an advertisement or a political campaign, social media has formed to be the best platform to connect to people globally. In this report the discussion will be focused on the how and why the social media has been used as the medium for political campaigns in offices. The importance of social media for political campaigns will be analyzed and discussed. Thus the research will be focused on the role of social media in political engagement. There will be analysis of how the new age media has increased the possibilities to the ideal situation for political campaign

1. How and why social media has transformed campaigns for political office?
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How and why social media has transformed campaigns for political office?
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2. How and why social media has transformed campaigns for political office?
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How and why social media has transformed campaigns for political office?
Contents
Abstract.........................................................................................................................................................2
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................3
Use of Social media by President Obama in 2008 campaign........................................................................4
How social media has changed the political campaigns in the present times? ...........................................5
Why social media has been used in the political campaigns in the present times?.....................................7
Negative Use of social media for political campaigns ..................................................................................9
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................10
Abstract
In the present times, social media is one such platform which has been useful in connecting the
people throughout the world. Be it a personal interaction, a product promotion, an advertisement
or a political campaign, social media has formed to be the best platform to connect to people
globally. In this report the discussion will be focused on the how and why the social media has
been used as the medium for political campaigns in offices. The importance of social media for

3. How and why social media has transformed campaigns for political office?
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political campaigns will be analyzed and discussed. Thus the research will be focused on the role
of social media in political engagement. There will be analysis of how the new age media has
increased the possibilities to the ideal situation for political campaign.
Introduction
In the present times, social media has been a major platform for the promotion. Each and every
organization and industry is trying to use the platform in order to promote their product or
services. Similarly, a number of political organizations has been making the widespread use of
social media platform in order to spread political campaign in the world. In the past few years, a
large number of social media websites have been popular in the world. Be it the exponential
growth of Facebook or the 200 million worldwide followers of Twitter, social networking has
been the primary mechanism to contact people in the world. This platform has been effective
each and every campaign in the world, including the political campaigns. According to the study
conducted by Matthew James Kushin and Masahiro Yamamoto published under the name of
Mass Communication and Society (2010), in the recent times there has been a significant growth
in the behavior of the political parties throughout the world the emergence of a number of new
and interactive media houses and other websites. It has been found that around one in every 5
person in America has used Twitter as a social networking medium for the purpose of political
campaigns. The study has also revealed that with the use of social media, political views can
opinions can be easily expressed. It is something which not only provides important information
to the users but also help them to interact with the help of online interaction such as by posting
political comments on different blogs and social network websites (Hong and Nadler, 2012). The
Facebook users have been expressing their views in a number of political campaigns by updating

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their statuses, messages, opinions and attitude. Thus, the research paper discusses that how the
social media has transformed the political campaigns in the recent times. There will be
investigation on the recent political campaigns, impact of social media on the same and the
importance of the social media campaigns in future.
Use of Social media by President Obama in 2008 campaign
The 2008 elections in USA was one of the most important occurrence for the people of USA and
the entire world. This campaign was strongly supported by the use of social media. Getting the
constant support from social media was one of the most important part of the campaign which
was conducted by Obama and his party. According to the Mass Media and American Politics
(Doris Graber, 2009), it was stated that the major difference in the voting in the 2008 elections
between Obama and McCain was because of social media. As per the stats the Facebook
followers of Obama were around 2 million while that of McCain were only 600000. Thus, it can
be clearly observed that the reach of Obama because of Facebook was much higher as compared
to McCain. According to the news article by New York Times, in 2008, the effectiveness of
usage of social media by Obama was discussed (West, 2013). Another study conducted by
Matthew James Kushin and Yamanoto revealed that the insight of the people under the age of 30
were able to incline them towards political information because of the social media, in
comparison to any other group. Another study conducted by the Harvard Institute of Politics also
revealed that around 27 % of youth was attracted to politics because of social media. These,
results clearly reflects that how social media has changed the political campaigns in the world.
This reveals that because of social media, politics was able to be the part of life of youths.
According to the official You Tube page of Obama, there were a number of videos where the

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support of the celebrities and other people were revealed. Thus, from the above study it can be
clearly revealed that social media has been used by for political campaigns in the past (Effing et
al, 2011).
How social media has changed the political campaigns in the present
times?
The American elections of 2008 were the very first elections where social media played a major
part. After this there was an increase in the same. The studies by Pew Research reports, have
revealed that one in five adults using internet turned to social media during the elections in order
to get vital elections. Also, more than 170 million who have been staying in USA have used
social media platforms every month. From 19 % in 2006, the number of youths who view
political videos related to the campaigns, increased to 31 %. After witnessing the effects of the
use of social media in 2008, all the political parties changed their agenda and included more and
more social media for the purpose of promotion. In the present time each and every political
party is using social media for the purpose of promotion and campaigning. Since 2009, there has
been an increase of around half a billion in Facebook (Shirky, 2011). According to a media
consultant from USA, in the present times, it not only youths but the people belonging to
different age groups have been using the media platforms such as Facebook and twitter in the
present times. In fact the older users in the recent times has been increasing on a significant note.
It has been noted that in the present times, it is notable that the campaigners are legislative
officers are giving a lot of attention to the people.

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In addition to this, the Facebook is being used for a large number of purposes in the present
times. According to the Facebook page of US politics where the uses of Facebook by the
politicians has been highlighted, Obama has held a love town hall meeting through the use of
Facebook. This shows that how importance has Facebook become in the present times for the
campaigners. Also, in the year 2009, it was observed that the Justin Amash begun to post the
information related to each and every vote given by the Michigan House of Representatives.
Further, he begun to post his own votes on the social networking site along with the detailed
explanation for each one of them. After the elections, he said that he got a lot of support from the
people and it was because of Facebook that he got a lot of credibility.
The recent usage of Facebook in political campaigns has also closed the gap between the
democrats and the republicans. The parties use to form political online strategists who formulate
different strategies for the government agencies. Because of social media the gap which exists
between the republicans and democrats is also diminishing. An example of the same, is the use
of social media during the 2008 elections by democrats and the same by the republicans in the
election of 2010. In both these promotions there was different kind of levelling between the
activists on both the sides (Hong and Nadler, 2012). Before this, it was the notion that the social
networking has been under the controls of liberals because of the popularity of Obama. But, it
was proved wrong after 2010 elections. A number of Americans have stated that they are more
comfortable reading about the political news in the social media websites in comparison to other
newspapers. According to the survey by Pew report, around 61 % people agree then the internet
has changed the way political campaigns are done. Through it, they are able to get a wider view
of a specific political party which they got from the other sources.

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Why social media has been used in the political campaigns in the
present times?
It can be stated that the social media has changed the way political campaigns are done. In the
present times, each of the political campaign is useless without involving the social media. In the
past the speeches were used as a source of motivation. But, with the emergence of social media
there are a number of changes in the political campaigns. In the present times, around 75 % of
teens and around 93 % of adults between the ages of 18-29 uses social media for the purpose of
promotion (Zúñiga et al, 2012). Due to this the political analysts can even get the idea about a
specific region and thus social media can serve as a data gathering point. Each of the political
campaigner in the present times has an account on Facebook and Twitter and they are able to
give their opinions through these sources. Through the social media, they are easily able to
communicate directly with the people, instead of having the same through a mediator such as
news channel. They can easily post the news related to the political campaigns, by creating a
24/7 cycle. If the reader is interested to know about a specific party, they can get the news every
now and then. Another characteristic of Facebook which has captured the social media is the
political campaigns is the hash tags (Ratkiewicz et al, 2012). Hash tags is the technology through
which the political parties are able to increase their followers and ensure that the followers gets
the interesting conversations. Because of tending on Facebook, the people can get to know which
post is most trending in the present times. This also enables the people to express their opinions
in creative manner.

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It is because of the social media in the present times that the gap between the voters and the
politicians has been bridged, which makes the candidates much more relatable and familiar to the
people. This helps the public to connect to them and know who is good for them.
In addition to this, there has been change in the nature of political campaigns in the present
times. The campaigning can be much more natural because of social media as the politicians are
much more guarded and are trying to cut off the journalists from the campaigns. It is much more
interesting to view the activities about a political party or a person in comparison to reading
about them or hearing what did they actually see (Strandberg, 2013). It has been possible for
everyone to observe the views of the politicians directly through social media platforms such as
You Tube. A large number of political parties are using social media such as You Tube and
Facebook for the purpose of spreading the information directly. It is through this they can have
direct control over the promotion (Bertot et al, 2012). Each and every information can be there in
the public on a very fast level and they can get a direct access to each and every news and
information which a political party wishes to delivery.
Be it the Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008 or the campaign in 2012, social media has been
playing a significant role. The voters in the recent campaigns have been targeted by getting the
specific messages which are related to some of the key issues (Bennett, 2012). It is something
which is very surprising to observe that how political campaigns have changed in the present
times. In the recent times, there are a large number of social media strategies which have been
developed with an aim to influence voter turnout by a drastic numbers (Williams et al, 2012).
This can lead to a transformation in the election campaigns. Because of the modern technologies
in the present times, the candidates can target their audience quite easily and can speak directly

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about the emerging issues to the public. Thus, the social media can have right impact at the right
time from on the person (Dimitrova, 2011).
In the recent times, the UK General elections has been contested online. There are a number of
polls who have predicted a hung parliament. But the majority was won by conservatives, who
had a better political campaign.
Social media is also beneficial for the campaigners as it help the politicians to harness the power
of communication through the unique design of its content (Valenzuela, 2013). Be it the simple
video updates, custom images, photos of campaigns, important quotations, direct Question
Answer sessions and other live events, a number of campaigns have been promoted through
social media (Rice et al, 2012).
The best thing which has changed the political campaigns is the presence of a two way
mechanism. In other mediums to spread information such as newspapers or media, only the
information related to politicians was available to the voters (Holt et al, 2012) Because of social
media, they can also spread their verdict.
Through the use of social media, there has been a more number of opportunities for the local
politicians. By having a proper planning and use of social media tools, they can be far more
effective.
Negative Use of social media for political campaigns
There has been a large number of events where social media has been used in the political
campaigns. Though with respect to political agendas, social media has been a very new and a
recent term for the people to communicate during the political campaigns, it may be important to

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note that there has been a number of changes in political campaigns because of social media. But
along with this, there has been a number of negative effects of the use of social media for
political campaigns (Ceron, 2014). According to the article by USA Today (2011), it was stated
that a complete political campaign can be destroyed with a single post. Another problems arise
when the social media is used by the campaigners without taking any help from the staff. Many
times because of the lack of skills, the campaigners who are in local parties may get adverse
impact of promotion through the use of social media (Larrson et al, 2012).
Conclusion
Internet and social media has changed the world. Each and every person is being impacted
because of the same. It has made communication between individuals and groups much easier.
Because of social media, people are connected to each other and the world in a better manner.
Political parties are also using social media for their campaigns. It has changed the manner in
which the campaigns have taken place in the past. In this research paper, the ways in which
social media has changed the political campaigns has been discussed. The analysis has been done
on the use of social media in the 2008 elections by Obama. Further, studies has been conducted
on how social media has been beneficial for the political campaigns in the present times. There
has been a discussion on the negative impacts of the same. But, social media has largely changed
the ways in which political campaigns were held in the past.
References
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