The first internet president: His Website

The internet has been of significant importance for election campaigning since it first emerged. With use of the internet candidates are able to talk to the public without their message being filtered. Candidate websites evolve with each election cycle and candidates find new and better ways to use the internet within their campaign. In this last election cycle in the United States , the 2008 presidential elections, one candidate in particular has been widely discussed for his use of the internet within his campaign, Barack Obama. It has been argued that were it not for the internet, he would not have been president today. He has been called ‘the first internet president’. Barack Obama’s win of the presidential election makes it important to understand how the internet was used as a campaign tool within his campaign. Therefore, this thesis looks at part of how Obama’s campaign made use of the internet, and focuses upon the Obama campaign website. This research seeks to explain how the Obama campaign used their campaign website, and if their use was different from earlier elections. What was significant about the website and what can be seen as to partly explain his success? This thesis starts with a literature review of the use of the internet in earlier elections. It shows how campaign websites and the internet were used in previous election cycles. It provides an introduction for the reader on internet election campaigning. From this literature review three concepts emerge that are generally present on campaign websites: fundraising, interactivity, and participation. Therefore a literature overview on each of these three concepts is given. Then it is defined what is meant with each of the concepts in this thesis. An important aspect of campaigning is to generate fundraising and to mobilize supporters (Bimber & Davis, 2003). Therefore, this thesis is interested in how the Obama campaign tried to generate fundraising on the website, and how visitors were able to participate in the campaign process through the use of the website. The Obama campaign created a following of supporters who became active offline. It is argued that when candidates create a strong sense of community, citizens will feel part of a larger project for which they are willing to work together with (Chadwick, 2006; Vaccari, 2008). A sense of community can be created through interactivity on the website, when visitors are able to interact with each other (Chadwick, 2006). Therefore, this research also seeks to explain how visitors were able to interact with each other on the website and with the campaign staff, and if and how the Obama campaign created a sense of community on the website. To summarize, this thesis researches how the campaign website was used in order to generate fundraising, how it provided interactivity for the site visitor, and how visitors were able to participate and how the campaign tried to spurr them into action. The research question for this thesis is: How was the Obama campaign website used during the 2008 presidential elections to generate fundraising, interactivity and participation, and what was significant about this use? The website is analyzed with use of descriptive analysis and qualitative content analysis. The first unit of analysis, the features on the website, is analyzed with use of descriptive analysis. The second unit of analysis is the Obama Blog, this has been researched with use of discourse analysis. This research gives the reader insight in what was significant about Obama’s website. It shows that at the centre of Obama campaign was the creation of online social network. Through interactivity the campaign focused on building relationships with visitors and members by making them feel like part of the campaign, and creating a social community by allowing them to interact with each other, emphasizing that is about them. All of this making them willing to participate, motivating them into action, and then providing them with all the tools needed to get organized and to participate.