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Campaigns need to listen to the Internet Media

Submitted by Jon Henke on Fri, 10/24/2008 - 18:03
in

Mark McKinnon - with whom I work in other contexts - has an interesting post at Internet Evolution on the impact of the internet.  He is specifically discussing Twitter, but I think his point about bilateral communication is applicable to the internet media in general...

The greatest impact the Internet has had on politics is democratization. And nowhere is this trend more evident than in the current use of microblogs like Twitter. [...]  People are listening to and analyzing every single word that John McCain and Barack Obama say, so the campaigns don’t necessarily need another channel for communicating to the public. But people are also paying attention to which campaigns and politicians are actually listening to the people as well, and it may be that the true value of Twitter for political campaigns is in listening more than talking. Twitter is more than just a large, unorganized focus group; it is a link to real-time constituent consciousness.

We have been conditioned by traditional communication channels - broadcast and print - to think in terms of Push Media; that is, using the media to push a message in front of an audience.   Campaigns, electoral and advocacy, are sometimes (very slowly) getting a little better at Pull Media (media that draws an audience organically), but even the Push/Pull media is only half of the value these organizations can draw from the internet.

As McKinnon says above, campaigns should listening.  There are a variety of values in this...

  • Early Warning Intelligence: campaigns, or any organization, can get a tremendous amount of intel and insight out of the online world.  The internet is the tip of the spear for their opposition.  Stories and frames frequently emerge online well before they bubble into the public consciousness.  Early warning allows campaigns to take preemptive action to mitigate or even prevent those probems.

  • Better Ideas: Ideas don't always need to originate from the campaigns. The best messages and the best research often comes from the crowd, and the internet - particularly the blogosphere - is a rich source of ideas.  Campaigns do this to some extent already (see: Joe the Plumber), but there is a great deal more idea-farming they could do.

  • Sound Boarding: If a message and theme is working online, then it works.  Online buzz is not a scientific way to test messages, but it can be a very valuable sounding board for campaigns to evaluate existing messages and ideas.  It can also be a useful way for campaigns to find the holes in an argument before they leap onto it.

 The evolution from Push to Pull Media is important; learning to listen better will improve their Push and Pull media efforts.

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Comments

Joe The Plumber?

Submitted by Rich Merritt on Fri, 10/24/2008 - 18:44.

Are you saying "Joe the Plumber" was a good idea?  He's turned off almost as many votes for McCain as Sarah Palin. 

Yes, there is at least one honest republican!

And who would that honest "small r" republican be, Rich?

Submitted by lagomorph on Sat, 10/25/2008 - 16:34.

According to your blog, that would not be you.  In your post on David Iglesias titled Profile in Courage, you wrote:

Although Iglesias and I have a common past - born to Baptist parents, attended Bible colleges, service as military officers and attorneys - my life experience caused me to change my political beliefs whereas he remained a republican and today still calls himself a true republican.

When I discuss the Left and the Democratic Party, at least I use capital letters and I do not pretend to be the one "honest democrat" if I'm posting on Kos or HuffPo.  I think that would be interpreted as disengenuous to say the least, especially since my political views have shifted to the Right as much as yours have shifted to the Left.  Your use of the small "r" seems disrespectful to your dear friend Iglesias who has chosen to remain in the Republican Party. 

Aside from issues of character, let's move on to what you portray as a terrible injustice involved in Iglesias' dismissal based on your question "Why was the Bush White house so concerned with voter fraud in New Mexico?" along with your assertion that:

[Iglesias'] case still has not received the level of attention it deserves.  That’s probably because it’s a little complicated for most people to grasp.  It requires an understanding of Constitutional separation of powers, role of political appointees, the nature of a federal prosecutorial role and the issue of voter fraud vs. voter suppression.

According to the Rotten ACORN fraud map (a site I would not be surprised to see you characterize as a voter suppression group, since "voter suppression" is always associated with anyone attempting to stop Democratic voter fraud): 

In New Mexico, 2005, four ACORN employees submitted as many as 3,000 potentially fraudulent signatures on the group’s Albuquerque ballot initiative. A local sheriff added: “It’s safe to say the forgery was widespread.”

Could that be why the Bush White House was so concerned with voter fraud in New Mexico, or was it simply the voter suppression agenda of a Republican administration as the Left would so passionately like us to believe? 

I don't know Iglesias personally, but I do know that ACORN is one of the most unethical, fraudulent organizations in the United States and that its agitation tactics in community bank board rooms directly resulted in the forced adoption and compliance with regulations initiated by Democrats which forced unqualified borrowers to be awarded high risk loans.  High risk loans = loans which were guaranteed to be paid back by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, because they were extraordinarily unlikely to be repaid by the principle borrower(s). 

Joe Wurzelbacher seems to understand the basic fundamentals of economics and wealth creation vs. wealth apprehension far better than anyone voting for Barack Obama and a Liberal supermajority in the House and Senate this year, but of course only time will tell folks like yourself whether Obama really has "gotten it right" by being so far to the Left.  When the ACORN-mined economy forces Obama to reneg on all of his promises to Democrats in particular and Americans in general, we'll see how his Presidency plays out - unless of course you're so wrong about Joe and Sarah Palin that McCain actually wins the election. 

By the way, that's a great photo of you with Barney Frank on your website, the same Barney Frank whose lover was the Director of Product Initiatives at Fannie Mae during same time period that Republicans were attempting to hold the regulatory hearings that Frank blocked.  You and Barney must be so proud of his exploitation of the American taxpayers.  Call yourself a Marine because you've earned it, brother, but please don't call yourself an "honest republican" because that's simply not true, and the jury's still out on Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin until November 4, 2008. 

In the "reality-based community"

Submitted by Ironman on Sat, 10/25/2008 - 16:49.

We would be running Bill Weld for Vice President and using Scott McClellan as our man in the street spokesman. Because the public is so turned off by blue collar conservatives that what they pine for is the voice of blue blood moderates.

 

Interesting - and true!

Submitted by spartacus on Fri, 10/24/2008 - 21:40.

The internet is shaping us every day - it allows a forum for us to share our thoughts and beliefs. In both a positive and sometimes negative way.

Yes, campaigns should pay attention to bloggers and commenters. However, not all blogs and comments are created equal and with the intent of informing or shaping the opinion of those who read them.

In many cases, people respond to a blog simply to do so without regard to fact or quality of response. So when we think of the value of the media out there, is it really a good thing to try to weed through the incessant chatter in order to find the gem?

I find that most liberal sites (aka the popular ones) have thousands of inane responses to a single blog. Okay, so what are they saying - oh the same thing over and over and over - and it's usually things like name calling and argumentative stuff. So the big question is - how do you toss out the garbage in order to find the nugget?

"media that draws an audience organically"

Submitted by jhmccloskey on Sat, 10/25/2008 - 03:56.

[A]  "The greatest impact the Internet has had on politics is democratization..."[B]  "We have been conditioned by traditional communication channels - broadcast and print - to think in terms of Push Media; that is, using the media to push a message in front of an audience.   Campaigns, electoral and advocacy, are sometimes (very slowly) getting a little better at Pull Media (media that draws an audience organically) ..."Exactly what is it that ‘conditions’ Federalists/Whigs/Republicans/conservatives -- America's Otherparty?  An interesting question, though maybe a little stale by now.  Is that a different question from wondering what ‘impacts’ America's Otherpartisans?   I suppose it must be, when a flashy-trashy new toy like the Internet gets dragged in as if it were nightbread or sliced baseball.  Not to speak of   http://twitter.com/ , likely to make the Hula Hoop® look like a grand culture monument for the ages.Otherpartisan B professes expressly to have been ‘conditioned.’  A brief personal narrative of how that process feels to its victim or patient might be valuable for purposes of social scientism, although I'd suggest 14,000 words rather than 140 bytes, brevitywise.Otherpartisan A is more like one’s own (and the vulgar traditional) idea of that crew:  he scribbles as if the Otherparty proposes to DO the impactin’ rather than suffer it -- altogether more worthy of a rational animal, <I>me judice</I>.Then along comes Mr. Poster, who cannot be any sort of Otherpartisan at all, that the two wheeler-dealers have been talkin’ about Citizen von Wurzelbacher without mention of the name.  That would not have occurred to me, and I suspect it is a mistake.  Von Wurzelbacher certainly looks like being not only a mistake-in-itself, but also a mistake made by B. Husáyn Obáma -- one might perhaps, from an Otherparty viewpoint, speak of a windfall prophet.  For them to call their new ideobuddy ‘Joe’ a good idea is as if they were to call it a good idea to find twenty-dollar bills on the sidewalk and use them to balance the Fedguv budget.To spoof is human, but let us be sure we know when we are spoofing, please.Seriously, Otherpartisan A is out to dish the Whigs yet again:  "The greatest impact ... on politics is democratization."Imitation the sincerest form of flattery?  Well, maybe, but after at least 180 years of that ploy, adherents of the American Democracy may find that even flattery itself can get a bit tedious.  The present keyboard, at least, finds that its eyes glaze over when the militant extremist GOP start goin’ on about "democratization."  The only silver lining is that they are hardly ever really sincere about their Me-Tooism: General Harrison’s log cabin of 1840 was very fit for Rabbi Ben Trovato to live in, and now comes the Fabulous Flyboy's Straight-Arrow Express™, should the reverend gentleman wish to travel abroad.  "The less things change, the more things stay the same."Otherpartisan A is not just for democratization, though, he also likes "bilateral communication."  It never distinctly occured to me before that "unilateral communication" even exists, though a nanosecond of reflection suffices to establish that indeed it does, and further that America's Otherparty have always been fond of it.   A. and B. here piously consider history to be bunk and write as if postbunk begins with Professor MacLuhan.  Broader minds will see that all advertising, and the catechism too, qualify as unilateral com.  Parade-ground commands -- including most office memos vouchsafed by Big Management -- are perhaps a bit dubious:  the unilateralism is plain, but may one really speak of ‘communication’?The immediate puzzle, though,  is that Otherpartisan A seems to take "bilateral communication" to be pretty much what a Harvard Victory School MBA would call "market research"  -- findin’ out what the customer thinks she wants.  Otherpartisan A quotes Otherpartisan C and adds emphasis.  Pretty typically, this donkey is struck more by what the neocomrade passes over, namely "it may be that the true value of Twitter for political campaigns is in listening more than talking."   In a sense that is tautology -- how on Gore's green earth could they use that mechanism to tell Lady Customer what she wants?It quickly turns out that the Otherparty notion of ‘listening’ is a bit, well, specialized:  "Twitter is ... a link to real-time constituent consciousness."   The picture offered imagination is not exactly of Socrates and Parmenides conversing;  it is far more like Dr. Frankenstein scrutinizing the dials and gauges attached to his latest creation.   Which fits in nicely with one of the Otherparty's all-time great soundbites:  General Hamilton's "Your ‘people’, sir, is a great beast."The more refractory kind of Democrat in America might drag in G. Orwell rather than A. Hamilton at this juncture, but that is not advisable.  If the Otherparty's technical hired hands can develop "a link to real-time constituent consciousness" that really works, Mr. James Carville will undoubtedly be wanting one for Christmas, and he will not be alone.  Anyway, we do not yet know for sure that twitterisation works: most such gimmicks and whizbangs fail to live up to the prospectus, after all, and especially when they are brand new.At a more respectable level, these three Otherpartisans may be makin’ the same mistake that political gimmickmongers of all species have been prone to, the failure to come up with a gimmick that is guaranteed to do more for Wunnerful Us than it does for Icky Them.  Twitterisation could even cut against the Otherparty on balance, since we jackasses are notoriously more likely to cater to Lady Customer's whims after we discover what they are than are the grave exponents of Wisdom and Virtue and "Drill, baby, drill!"Otherpartisan A would be in a pretty pickle, would he not, if the great Internet impact that he looks forwards to should turn out to be not democratization, but only Demo[n]cratization?    I don't see any particular reason why that must happen, but then I could not even begin to do Comrade Carville's job.And God knows best about nifty electoral whizbangs.__Otherpartisan B's distinction between push-whizbangs and pull-whizbangs eludes me.  It is unlikely that he proposes simply to allow Lady Customer to win the "bilateral communication" tug-of-war, to let her pull him.   If he does start simply panderin’,  though, surely he ought to enlist under the standard of St. Bill Clinton openly and honestly?  So presumably the neocomrade must intend in some sense to pull Lady Customer by the nose rather than push her by the ... by her posterior.  What sense that is, though, who can say?His three points of practical advice amount only to havin’ the Otherparty agitprop arm rake through the e-rubbish daily in hopes of findin’ somethin’ valuable.   A perfectly sensible idea -- so sensible that even operatives of the Stupid Party must have thought of it long since.  If that sensible idea has anything in particular to do with "drawin’ an audience organically," why then I am not only Marie of Roumania but Sarah Louise of Wasillastán to boot.Happy days. 

Some words of advice

Submitted by Bryan Pick on Sat, 10/25/2008 - 13:10.

1. Learn to use paragraphs.  People skip over gigantic blocks of text, because an inability to separate thoughts on the page indicates mental sloppiness and because it's harder for the eye to keep track of where it is on the page.

It also helps to heighten important words and points with bold, italics, bullet points, etc.

2. Get to the point.  I'm sure some people will be impressed that you can drop the names of a dozen historical figures and jam a bunch of snark into every sentence, but searching for a point in your writing is tiresome. 

Brevity is a virtue.

 

A Conservative Video Campaign You Must See...

Submitted by MidPointMan on Sat, 10/25/2008 - 07:45.

Please help promote these videos.  I want conservatives to learn to use the Internet as a weapon laden with facts.

These come from the "Burning Down The House" video that was on Drudge.  

Here is the latest video.  It is incredible.  If only McCain did more videos like these...

http://windsofchange.thruhere.net

I think it could have viral qualities.

There are many other videos on this YouTube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/themouthpeace

Spread these videos and post them everywhere.  Think of it like this, with 10,000 committed people posting these in 10 places each day over 10 days, that is 1,000,000 postings.

If 10 people see each posting that is 10,000,000 views.  If only 1 in 10 send it to 10 people that is 20,000,000 views.

Now you are talking enough impact to change an election!  Let's do that!

Did it

Submitted by lagomorph on Sat, 10/25/2008 - 16:43.

Just posted your Winds of Change video on Twitter.  As I was watching it, I had to wonder if we'll suffer a massive irony attack by electing the most Far Left Liberal administration in the history of the United States at a time when the rest of the world is coming to its center/right senses. 

I love the way these videos can be used to teach and reinforce good ideas virally.  Thanks so much for sharing, and for suggesting their proliferation. 

Everyone's an expert

Submitted by IrishRep on Sat, 10/25/2008 - 10:58.

Look i agree that people in this business should be willing to listen to other peoples ideas.  

But, there comes a time when people who do not work in this business just need to come in to a office and pick up a phone and make some calls or go door to door.  Because someone might have a great idea in their mind; but, when in reality it sucks.  And doing this as a hobby is completely different from doing this for a living.  

The best type of activist is willing to do what the camapign asks of them.  It is the camapign's job to provide people with the resources that they need to be successful.  It is not the campaigns job to spend hours a day listening to people's "great ideas" 

So you all should go make some GOTV phone calls or knock some doors.

Glad to see you again!

Submitted by Noumenon on Mon, 10/27/2008 - 08:52.

Jon, I'm really glad to find you blogging again -- you're so fair and balanced.  Can I suggest making one last post at your QandO blog to inform people where your new blog is?  I might not be the only person who still checks that once in a while or has an old RSS feed.