Obama and the power of internet mobilisation

Barack Obama’s victory in the US elections is historic in so many ways that will be poured over across all media today but nowhere is that sense of change going to be felt more than the place that has become his natural constituency – the internet.
Obama’s election campaign is the first in history to fully utilise the power of the World Wide Web to mobilise support in such an all-encompassing way.
Those remarkable polling booth queues, the feeling of involvement and empowerment being displayed by voters were the embodiments of a movement which has changed the way the ordinary citizen can engage with institutions.
This side of the Atlantic few of us are fully aware of the sheer groundswell the new President’s campaign prompted.
In his book Causewired, online journalist Tom Watson describes how the campaign behaved in the manner of an internet start-up by combining two seemingly opposing core strategies – a tightly controlled website and an architecture for distribution.
“From the start the campaign was agnostic about platforms, and the content and organizing tools available on My.BarrackObama.com migrated almost anywhere a digital conversation could take place” he said.
So that campaign took place on youtube, on Facebook, on LinkedIn and mySpace. People voted stories up at Digg and participated in social networks targeted towards various demograohic groups such as BlackPlanet and AsianAve.com.
“Everywhere you went, the ubiquitous Obama brand followed, centered on hagiographic photos and a campaign insignia that was one part Tolkein’s “one true ring” and another part corporate Middle America margarine logo”.
By harnessing online users desire to participate to collaborate and share in their experience, election campaign chiefs successfully tapped into the seismic shift currently taking place in society brought about by these digital tools and applications.
Obama’s campaign has opened a door that we’ll never return through. It’s a lesson which every political party and organisation, will need to learn – and quick – in order for them not to be consigned to the dusty printed pages of the history books.
My pick of three examples of participatory US election coverage:
• Twittervote report A multitude of users reported the votes as they happened using mobile phones and the micro-blogging tool twiiter.
• Super Tuesday map. Created from a mash-up of Google maps and Youtube.
• Election day live on Qik. Plenty of this going on but this is just one example from St Louis Post-Dispatch .
Check out the Online Journalism Blog for more on the best online election coverage.
Thanks to Flickr photographer radiospike for the thoughtful portrait of President of the USA on this page.