One thing I really have to mention here is the difference between the American election campaigns and the German election campaigns.
The American campaigns of the parties took place on the internet - in an over-whelming mass. Especially the Democratic Party uses the internet to connect to the "normal" people like you and me. First thing I did, when the name Barack Obama came up in the media: I looked for his website with "Google". His presence in the internet is impressive.
Social Networking is important to win the voters, to give them the chance to find our more about the candidate's programs and profile.
The clicks on the internet are obviously: 3 of 4 clicks, made during a search for information on election campaigns, are for Obama (source: Hitwise).
Flickr, Twitter and YouTube are the important social networks during this election campaign. And again, Obama leads the click race. 1.3 Million Obama-supporter on Facebook, in comparison to McCain, who has got 200000 "friends" on that network, a huge number.
Another important thing for this internet campaign is Twitter. The user writes in 120 charts, were he is and what he does at the moment. With Twitter you subscribe at a profile, for example at Obama's profile, and "follow" him to wherever he goes. A fine thing to stay in touch and to underline the close connection to the voters and supporter.
At YouTube the candidates can load up their videos. McCain's account got 20 Million clicks - but that is nothing against Barack Obama's channel: 52 Million views on his videos! Single videos has got millions of clicks. The speech about racial problems was watched almost five million times.
You have to consider, that Obama's target group are the young people, who are between 20 and 30 years old. A group of voters which are 50 Million people. 90 percent of this people are online and 70 percent have profiles on Facebook,, MySpace or Twitter. And another fact, which shows the importance of the internet for the candidates: 40 percent of the voters get their election information from the internet.
The actual campaign reacted and the candidates use the mass media internet to a huge degree.
The German election campaigns did not use the internet that much. Every party has got it's website, our chancellor Angela Merkel has a videocast every week, where she delivers a short speech about the happenings of the last week. Of course, this creates a modern image, but the resources, which are definitly there, are not perfectly used, yet. Maybe for the election campaign, the big parties will discover the media internet, which if such an important factor for today's politics.
If you want to see, how the candidates try to win the voters then visit their interesting websites:
www.youtube.com/user/BarackObamadotcom
www.twitter.com/BarackObama
www.youtube.com/user/JohnMcCaindotcom
The American campaigns of the parties took place on the internet - in an over-whelming mass. Especially the Democratic Party uses the internet to connect to the "normal" people like you and me. First thing I did, when the name Barack Obama came up in the media: I looked for his website with "Google". His presence in the internet is impressive.
Social Networking is important to win the voters, to give them the chance to find our more about the candidate's programs and profile.
The clicks on the internet are obviously: 3 of 4 clicks, made during a search for information on election campaigns, are for Obama (source: Hitwise).
Flickr, Twitter and YouTube are the important social networks during this election campaign. And again, Obama leads the click race. 1.3 Million Obama-supporter on Facebook, in comparison to McCain, who has got 200000 "friends" on that network, a huge number.
Another important thing for this internet campaign is Twitter. The user writes in 120 charts, were he is and what he does at the moment. With Twitter you subscribe at a profile, for example at Obama's profile, and "follow" him to wherever he goes. A fine thing to stay in touch and to underline the close connection to the voters and supporter.
At YouTube the candidates can load up their videos. McCain's account got 20 Million clicks - but that is nothing against Barack Obama's channel: 52 Million views on his videos! Single videos has got millions of clicks. The speech about racial problems was watched almost five million times.
You have to consider, that Obama's target group are the young people, who are between 20 and 30 years old. A group of voters which are 50 Million people. 90 percent of this people are online and 70 percent have profiles on Facebook,, MySpace or Twitter. And another fact, which shows the importance of the internet for the candidates: 40 percent of the voters get their election information from the internet.
The actual campaign reacted and the candidates use the mass media internet to a huge degree.
The German election campaigns did not use the internet that much. Every party has got it's website, our chancellor Angela Merkel has a videocast every week, where she delivers a short speech about the happenings of the last week. Of course, this creates a modern image, but the resources, which are definitly there, are not perfectly used, yet. Maybe for the election campaign, the big parties will discover the media internet, which if such an important factor for today's politics.
If you want to see, how the candidates try to win the voters then visit their interesting websites:
www.youtube.com/user/BarackObamadotcom
www.twitter.com/BarackObama
www.youtube.com/user/JohnMcCaindotcom
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