As a final (pre-summary) update on my project, I’d figure I’d give you guys some info on the interviews that I’ve been conducting.

At this point in time, it looks like four of my interviews have already yielded or will yield useable information. These four have been with Illinois State Treasurer Dan Rutherford, the Communications Staff of Congressman Peter Roskam’s office, the Communications Director of Congressman Rob Wittman’s office, and Tom Cosgrove, Executive Director of the Virginia Senate Republican Caucus and Legislative Assistant for Senator Tommy Norment.

These four participants bring a great variety of diversity to my research.

Treasurer Rutherford’s social media policy is novel in that he updates his social media profiles frequently, thoroughly, and most importantly, personally. HE is the one responsible for reaching out to constituents, followers, or just interested people through his social media profiles, and his updates often reflect his daily activities and/or schedule. I find this interesting– it almost brings a new level of transparency to the office. When on the road, Rutherford will post which hotel he stays at, often linking his frugal choices to his beliefs in a need for less government spending.

Congressman Peter Roskam also currently serves as the Chief Deputy Whip for the Republican party in the House of Representatives. Roskam’s office has, in the past, been involved in initiatives that represent the “media-fying” of the GOP– by this, I mean that the GOP is moving towards implementing newer technologies to reach out to the population to get feedback and input on their legislative agenda. One such initiative took the form of a website called “America Speaking Out” and was implemented last year– another is Majority Leador Eric Cantor’s YouCut program. Both of these programs rely on internet technology as the means of communicating between representatives and their constituents.

Congressman Wittman’s office’s feedback is interesting in that he serves as a co-chair of the Republican New Media Caucus in the House of Representatives. The creation of this caucus on its own formalizes the importance of social and new media in today’s political environment, as well as draws attention to the Republican Representatives’ realization of this importance.

Tom Cosgrove comes from a unique perspective. His role in both Norment’s office and as director of the Virginia Senate Republican Caucus allows him to speak of the differences and similarities in uses of social media between a localized campaign and a statewide effort to elect Republicans.

These four perspectives will play a large role in transforming my paper, which is currently largely informational, into a more personal, how-to type of document. I’m interested to see how the final product turns out!

Hey everyone! I hope your projects are all going well!

Last time I posted, I promised I would blog again with responses from interviews. Well.. I’m still waiting to hear back from a few people, so I’ve decided to hold off on posting about interview responses until I have more information and am able to compile and mentally process what information I receive. In the meantime, I’ll give a quick update about what I’ve been working on during the waiting process.

While going through the interview process, I’ve been spending my time mainly working on the highly unglamorous task of writing my monroe paper– so, basically doing whatever I can to work towards completion of the final product of my research project. So far, I’ve written a great deal about the history of media use in campaigning, and analyzed the use of media and, more specifically social media (of course), in the 2008 elections– while keeping an eye out for growth in use and potential for further growth.

Probably the most interesting NEW information that I’ve found since last time I blogged has to do with the 2008 elections. The 2008 presidential election has been revered as the first election in which social media was a “game changer” — much like television was in 1960 and internet in 2000/2004. As I started to look into this, though, scholarly opinions were less sure about the role social media played in Obama’s campaign. While it is generally recognized that the Obama Team used social media in an incredibly innovative and prominent way, opinions remain divided as to whether the use of social media actually made a noticeable impact in the results of the election.

What can be determined is the role that social media played– even if we can’t tell for sure the effects of that role. Social media and internet use in the Obama campaign were supplemental media forms. Obama’s message was spread primarily through broadcast television ads, which increased the popularity of his social media profiles and the number of visits to his website, which increased fundraising, which in turn increased the campaign’s ability to run more broadcast television spots. The vicious cycle of media campaigning– and it seems as though the Obama campaign was able to gain a near-mastery of it.

Some things that are notable about the Obama campaign’s social media/internet usage:
1) It is claimed that over $5 million of the $6 million that the Obama team raised for the 2008 election was raised online– this is phenomenal.
2) The prominence of social media (regardless of what level of effectiveness it had) in the 2008 campaign can reasonably be said to have caused the increase in social media competence in the GOP for the midterm elections of 2010.
3) In 2008, the Obama campaign website included a feature which allowed users to log into the website using their usernames and passwords from their favorite social media platforms– with campaign websites being launched for the 2012 presidential campaigns, this feature is becoming more and more commonplace– several candidates have included it in the platform for their websites.

Just a few thoughts to leave you with! Interview results and another blog post soon!
Kirstie