The Internet is playing an every dominant role in our everyday lives. In the realm of electoral politics too, its significance has been proven time and again and only strengthened over the years. Starting with the Dean Campaign in 2004, the Internet has become a powerful medium that has altered the nature and scale of the entire spectrum of campaigning from fund raising to the persuasion of the electorate both, to come out and vote, as well as to lend support to a particular political party. The heights of this revolution are in the United States, but it is by no means limited to it as witnessed by the tremendous role of the Internet in the Indian elections held earlier this year.
It is no surprise that the Internet has altered the course of campaigning forever. As Towner and Dulio explain in their paper on New Media and Political Marketing in the United States: 2012 and Beyond, the Internet has made campaigning more effective and efficient. It has made it possible to be more creative about both, the form and content of a campaign’s outreach. Candidates can choose from a plethora of outreach options that include the foremost and most effective email outreach, followed by others (in no order of priority) like online ads, social media, YouTube videos, etc. More importantly, it has made it possible to experiment with different messaging and form at a very low cost. A critical factor enabling this is that creating content and publishing it on the Internet is significantly cheaper than the production and airing of anything on the more traditional medium of television. Apart from the low cost, the fact that messaging on the Internet can be tried through processes like A/B testing make it possible to endlessly experiment with different content until the most effective and optimized style is discovered. By allowing the selective testing of content on small audiences, the Internet has also made it possible to reveal the most effective messages while limiting the public impact from the testing of the worst of the messages.
By all measures then, outreach through the Internet should be more effective at electoral persuasion than, for example, television ads. This however, has not been the case. Online advertising has been nowhere near as effective as TV ads. Part of this has to do with the content consumption habits of Americans. As Towner and Dulio explain in their paper, a large number of Americans still spend more number of hours in front of a TV than the Internet. It is no surprise then that TV ads are more successful than, for example, online ads. Online outreach can also be less effective for the very reasons that support it – the low cost and easy access mean that the Internet is that much more crowded with ads than airtime on TV.
At the same time, messaging beyond ads can be a powerful source of persuasion on the Internet. One needs to look beyond online advertising to realize the true potential for online persuasion and the tremendous possibilities for influencing people via the internet, something that is still in its early years when compared to a more established and well entrenched medium like TV. The possibility of shaping public opinion through YouTube videos, for example, is phenomenal. Such videos can appear to be ineffective for sustained, long-term messaging. But, their force to bring quick wins in terms of shaping public opinion can be tremendous. With the ability to go viral, content that is caught on to by the public can reach a very wide audience in a very short period of time and can remain on the airwaves into perpetuity without any additional cost to a campaign. With the significant campaign successes that have already been achieved through a medium like YouTube within less than a decade of its existence, one can only imagine what the possibilities as its use becomes more sophisticated. What has been achieved so far, then, is only the tip of the iceberg.
It is no surprise that the Internet has altered the course of campaigning forever. As Towner and Dulio explain in their paper on New Media and Political Marketing in the United States: 2012 and Beyond, the Internet has made campaigning more effective and efficient. It has made it possible to be more creative about both, the form and content of a campaign’s outreach. Candidates can choose from a plethora of outreach options that include the foremost and most effective email outreach, followed by others (in no order of priority) like online ads, social media, YouTube videos, etc. More importantly, it has made it possible to experiment with different messaging and form at a very low cost. A critical factor enabling this is that creating content and publishing it on the Internet is significantly cheaper than the production and airing of anything on the more traditional medium of television. Apart from the low cost, the fact that messaging on the Internet can be tried through processes like A/B testing make it possible to endlessly experiment with different content until the most effective and optimized style is discovered. By allowing the selective testing of content on small audiences, the Internet has also made it possible to reveal the most effective messages while limiting the public impact from the testing of the worst of the messages.
By all measures then, outreach through the Internet should be more effective at electoral persuasion than, for example, television ads. This however, has not been the case. Online advertising has been nowhere near as effective as TV ads. Part of this has to do with the content consumption habits of Americans. As Towner and Dulio explain in their paper, a large number of Americans still spend more number of hours in front of a TV than the Internet. It is no surprise then that TV ads are more successful than, for example, online ads. Online outreach can also be less effective for the very reasons that support it – the low cost and easy access mean that the Internet is that much more crowded with ads than airtime on TV.
At the same time, messaging beyond ads can be a powerful source of persuasion on the Internet. One needs to look beyond online advertising to realize the true potential for online persuasion and the tremendous possibilities for influencing people via the internet, something that is still in its early years when compared to a more established and well entrenched medium like TV. The possibility of shaping public opinion through YouTube videos, for example, is phenomenal. Such videos can appear to be ineffective for sustained, long-term messaging. But, their force to bring quick wins in terms of shaping public opinion can be tremendous. With the ability to go viral, content that is caught on to by the public can reach a very wide audience in a very short period of time and can remain on the airwaves into perpetuity without any additional cost to a campaign. With the significant campaign successes that have already been achieved through a medium like YouTube within less than a decade of its existence, one can only imagine what the possibilities as its use becomes more sophisticated. What has been achieved so far, then, is only the tip of the iceberg.
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