Presidential Election : Presidential Elections

This campaign season, I worked for Bruce Davis. Bruce Davis was the Democratic candidate chosen in the primary to run for House of Representatives in the Thirteen District in North Carolina. This campaign season was not a traditional one in comparison to what I’ve studied of past campaign’s. Our world has changed with the creation of social media and campaign’s have changed with it. In our campaign we had to look harder to find a proper strategy for using social media to are advantage and think outside the box. Bruce Davis chose to give his intern’s and his staff free reign to come up with ideas to move our campaign into modern times. These ideas will be discussed throughout this paper. I will discuss my personal experience, which was an

In the recent article by Philip Bump, “How Politicians’ Use of Social Media Is Reinforcing a Partisan Media Divide”, the author describes how social media has influenced political polarization. The author addresses the general public with the intention to expose how politicians, especially Congress, share certain links on social media to sway the voters. The strength in Bump’s argument lies in his appeal to the reader’s sense of curiosity, his writing style, and his acerbic tone. One of Bump’s strongest arguments is his appeal to the reader’s sense of curiosity. The author uses anecdotes to describe Representative Ted Lieu, whose award winning tweet sparked a rise in his following.

In the article “Did Social Media Ruin Election 2016,” the author, Sam Sanders, makes many valid points about social media, one being that it is not being used for what it was created for. Today, especially these past few months during the controversial election, social media has been used as a place for users to argue with others that do not agree with them. Sanders goes on to make many other points about social media being used destructively, and I agree with the vast majority of them.

The Presidential Election of 2016 is the social media election. This entire election revolves around the social media presence and outreach that both candidates have. The most important part of this social media election is the public reaction to the candidates and their promises which is found in the forms of tweets, memes, Instagrams, Snapchats, and Vines. In “The Dank Memes that are ‘Disrupting’ Politics,” written by Hua Hsu and published in The New Yorker, Hsu argues that social media is being used as a way to turn serious political discussions and commentary into a form of entertainment that’s sole goal is to create a simple joke that distracts us from the true implications of these discussions. Hsu depicts his argument through a series

President Obama not only was the first African American to be elected, but was also the first presidential candidate to effectively use social media as a major campaign strategy. In many ways the election of Barack Obama mimicked that of John F. Kennedy, both having changed politics forever. For John F. Kennedy it was the television and for Obama it was the internet. Barack Obama’s strategy of using the internet as a campaigning tool was a key to his victory in the election. He used the internet to organize his supporters. He had many more friends and followers on his Facebook and Twitter than his opponent John McCain did. The social media landscape looks a lot different now. There has been an increasing number of social media tools now than there were

Barrack Obama’s tenure as President of the United States is coming to a close and voters should understand how to gather reliable information on new candidates, such as Jeb Bush. Even though paying attention to all four major types of media platforms; digital, legacy, a candidates’ own media, and social media, creates a sound informative opinion on Republican Presidential hopeful Jeb Bush, digital media provides voters with the most holistic view. The benefits of digital media, throughout the week of September 15th through the 22nd, created an opportunity to construct a different point of view on Bush and what he stands for.

The 1980 presidential election of the United States featured three primary candidates, Republican Ronald Reagan, Democrat Jimmy Carter and liberal Republican John Anderson. Ronald Reagan was the governor of California before he decided to run for the presidency. John Anderson was a representative in Illinois and Carter was the incumbent. The lengthy Iran hostage crisis sharpened public opinions by the beginning of the election season. In the 1970s, the United States were experiencing a straining episode of low economic growth, high price increases and interest rates and an irregular energy crisis. The sense of discomfort in both domestic and foreign affairs in the nation were heading downward, this added to the downward spiral that was already going on. Between Carter, Anderson and Reagan, the general election campaign of the 1980s seemed more concerned with shadowboxing around political issues rather than a serious discussion of the issues that concerned voters.

Social media has given the human race an unprecedented amount of access to news and information. However, the validity and vetting of this information is often questionable at best. The emergence of websites such as Breitbart, Occupy Democrats, and TheBlaze have given way to a constant stream of partisan

Watching the 2016 Republican candidates battle for the presidency of the United States, one might reach the conclusion that Ronald Reagan never left the campaign trail.  In the second GOP debate alone, the “Great Communicator’s” name was brought up a total of 23 times, which even exceeds the number of times Donald Trump mentioned China.  One of the comments coming from Jeb Bush was “I’m on the Reagan side of this.”  Additionally, Senator Marco Rubio stated that “Reagan and his approach worked (CITE).”  The candidates worked hard to evoke memories of and make comparisons to the beloved former president.  The debate even took place in the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California.  Reagan has been constantly praised by those on the

In the past ten years the way we as a people communicate has changed greatly. No longer is it uncommon for conversations to not be face to face and now more so than ever conversations take place through text. As with any change there will be and is push back to it. The conflict over the consequences of the social media dependent society have now intensified as a result of social media playing ever greater roles in how politics is seen and even conducted. This has been a major societal question since the presidential election of 2008 and the debate has been written about, discussed, and argued by thousands of different politicians,

DAfter acquiring a resource that enabled the examination of the candidates’ position within the polls, the two most popular social media accounts for Ben Carson and Rand Paul were examined. The time and resource constraints for the candidates were considered when making the selection of how many and what social media sites were to be examined. Since the campaigns had a limited number of resources to allocate to social media, it was thought that the candidates’ two most popular social media platforms would best reflect alterations in campaign strategy. Additionally, categorizing the social media posts on other sites such as Vine, Tumblr, Instagram and Periscope would prove very difficult.

From the Huffington Post in the article “The Game Changer: Social Media and the 2016 Presidential Election” author R. Kay Green (2015) discusses strategies the candidates are using in order to win over the minority vote, which is to connect the millennial generation with social media. Specifically, social media has been shown to improve voting patterns because the younger generation can see and read about the election through social media. For instance, the subject matter first appeared in the 2008 elections as Barack Obama was the first candidate to use social media to his advantage, with this strategy the candidate was able to gain more voters. Quickly, Obama’s campaign tactic is obviously seen throughout the 2016 election with majority of the candidates now appearing on more than one technology platform. Throughout the article R. Kay Green uses ethos, pathos, and logos to support and express the impact that social media has had on the 2016 presidential elections.

After analyzing the different strategies used in the 2012 presidential election by candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, I have gathered enough information to lead you, Candidate Smith, into a path of success, and in the hope to help you reach presidency. The key element that made Obama successful, was the usage of social media—such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Youtube, etc. Therefore, I hope you have at least one account running in your favor, if not that will be the first thing on the agenda. So first, I will explain the possibilities for video ad campaigns and the power they have to persuade the people. Second, I will go over statistics for the Swing States of Nevada and Wisconsin, in order to understand our demographic—that is there ethnicities, income, education, and most importantly to understand their needs, that way we can start brainstorming on how we can help them prosper. And third, I will explain how Obama’s campaign was managed and what made him successful, moreover, how he was able to utilize social media to engage and relate to the citizens.

As election season draws closer, we see the candidates debate more and more. These debates are a huge part in the elections, but, there is another debate that has had the hot seat since the 2000 election of Gore and Bush. In 2000, Democratic candidate Al Gore won the popular vote across the United States, but, more controversy was created by the Republican candidate George W. Bush winning the presidential election because he surpassed the 270 electoral votes needed to win. An outcry arose from all across the country saying that the people’s voices are not heard through the Electoral College and that a true democratic country would allow for direct election of the President. So why did the founding fathers not allow a direct election? And why hasn’t the Electoral College been reformed yet if it is so bad? The answers are simple. Our founding fathers didn’t allow for a direct election because they were afraid that the voters would be not well enough informed about the candidates, a reform to the Electoral College would mean a new amendment to the constitution, and because in all actuality, the Electoral College helps keep little states involved with the elections.

In the writing by Briggs (Young People and Political Participation: Teen Players) she notes that “social media are a critical new space for political discourse and engagement, which political institutions cannot afford to neglect” as the younger audiences use social media, and the people they follow as a guide it seemed vital that modern day politics has to infiltrate social media formats. This can be utilised by politicians and their agenda to widen the scope of their message. In the Praeger Handbook of Political Campaigning in the United States, Benoit investigates how successful an organised strategy using new media to win an election can be for political candidates. He states that “the innovative use of new media contributed to President Barack Obama's presidential campaign win in 2008” (Benoit, 2016). Obama's presidential campaign was one of the first to set the standard for political strategy online. The literature talks about the expansion of the internet and how that has provided a suitable platform for political agendas to grow exponentially. With the focus of the research project highlighting the specific use of social media it is important to reflect on the initial stages of online political campaigning, and to understand how Trump has cultivated this style of political