Impact of the Internet on Political Campaigns and Elections essays

Impact of the Internet on Political Campaigns and Elections essays Upon entering the age of information technology, the role and impact of the Internet has become more and more crucial in every presidential election, nowadays online campaigning gradually becomes a phenomenon; it has completely redefined the rules of political campaign. It is common knowledge today that viral videos, podcasts, gifs and online chat forums have ruled the political elite in most recent political campaigns. Technology is now fully in use as a means of seeking for support from undecided voters and also as a means to convince your supporters to further back you up. The purpose of this paper is to give a brief introduction about online campaign and highlight the impact the internet has on political elections from various aspects. Political campaigns used to solely rely on speeches, rallies, and newspapers to reach out and motivate voters, grassroots support before was basically tied down to physical interaction with the politician, the major method used to keep the information flowing is to disburse leaflets and door to door communication, then radio and TV made it possible to reach everyone quickly and simultaneously. Neil Postman has argued in his book that the television commercial has become the most peculiar and pervasive form of communication to issue forth from the electric plug, it has profoundly influenced American habits of thought (Postman, 1985), although the main purpose of his book is to condemn television on the effect of political discourse, he did bring up the fact that television had become the prominent influence of political campaign at the time. Today, the Internets influence in political campaigning has surpassed television in every way possible. It has to a large degree turned the entire information exchange process upside down. In todays world, individuals who share a common set of values are just a few clicks away from finding other individuals both those whom they know and t...