Internet for Obama

In an article featuring many beliefs of Arianna Huffington, she says that without the viral nature of the internet, Barack Obama may not have been elected president. Obama has created what can be deemed as a group of followers via the internet, by sending out emails, linking to his website, which was very useful during the campaign. This enabled Obama to target a specific crowd online by easily accessing people. The internet takes away any postage costs from sending campaign information through snail mail, while also being able to reach a wider audience at the same time. Not only did Obama use the internet in his campaign, but he is continuing to draw support through the medium throughout his presidency. He has published a website with information regarding health care and such that can be controversial, putting up testimonials in favor of the health care reform. He is keeping the citizens well informed, while also being persuasive, in a noninvasive fashion.

Arianna also said that the internet is a self-correcting system, as a result of the ease of widespread rumors and falsities. It was easy for his followers to put information on the web countering false or incriminating information of Obama concerning things such as Reverend Wright, or rumors of him being an angry black man and a socialist Muslim.

Arianna says that without the internet, none of this would have happened and Obama may well just as easily not been elected president, although one could form the argument that it was a realigning election in favor of the Democrats, the internet may have eased this process.

This also leads to the subject of the internet also easing the formation of independent blogging sites, such as Josh Marshall and TalkingPointsMemo. Marshall utilized much of the information put online regarding the firings of District Attorneys across the country, which then led to his blog bringing down Attorney General Gonzalez after discovering they others were fired for not directly catering to the views of the Bush administration. TPM is now one of the most successful independent blogs and is hiring more people than they have ever had in the past. All of this was possible through the internet. The internet created a different business model for bloggers to begin, unlike in the past, where it was near impossible to start a new print outlet.