South Africa Connect

America votes today and many in America (and the rest of the world) are hoping  that America votes for change.

If this is the case, and Obama-Biden clinch victory this may also represent an historic moment in the evolution of the information society and in the ability of the Internet to bring about social change. The US elections may turn out to be the first example in which the internet has been an important and arguably decisive playing field for electoral politics. The Obama campaign may also be remembered as the first electoral campaign to have an integral, real Web 2.0 component.

According to the New York Times, “Campaigns in a Web 2.0 world”:

Not since 1960, when John F. Kennedy won in part because of the increasingly popular medium of television, has changing technology had such an impact on the political campaigns and the organizations covering them.

Obama has fruitfully utilised Web 2.0 in his campaign:

• Over a year ago Obama posed on yahooanswers.com, the famous question: “How can we engage more people in the democratic process?”
• Obama launched (as far as I am aware), the first ever social networking site linked directly to a presidential campaign, my.barackobama.com, backed by Chris Hughes, the co-founder of facebook.
• Obama has more supporters there than Biden, Clinton, McCain and Palin Combined:

Source: Facebook, graphic by Alex Comninos

While we might not have proof yet that Obama was, as he proclaims was born on Krypton, sent here by his father Jor-El to save the planet earth (clip from Al Smith Charity dinner below), we may soon have some understanding as to how and why the Internet, Web 2.0 and social networking can influence political campaigns.

With South African Elections around the corner and two political forces both promising sweeping societal change, political parties may wish to study the Obama campaign and gain insights on how to fully utilise Web 2.0 in their electoral campaigns.

Although South Africa has vastly lower levels of Internet penetration than America, politicians should be careful that they don’t miss out on opportunities for using the power of Web 2.0 to attract votes and affect social change.

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Alex Comninos is a Researcher and Network Coordinator at Research ICT Africa, based at the EDGE Institute