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Te Election o a Lietime

Mitchell S. McKinney and Mary C. Banwart

he most important election o our lietime was a claim heard repeat-edly throughout the 2008 campaign rom candidates and media pundits,to citizens o all ages While many presidential elections become nothing morethan a mere ootnote in history, the 2008 campaign and election changed historyCertainly, Barack Obamas nomination and eventual election as the nations rstblack president was a momentous eature o the historic 2008 campaign Yet, be-yond Obamas election as the 44th president o the United States, other importantelements o this historic electoral contest are worth noting, andor students

and scholars o political communicationworthy o careul examination Forexample, candidate gender played a signicant role in campaign 2008, includingHillary Rodham Clintons primary candidacy that resulted in 18 million cracksin that highest, hardest glass ceiling (Millbank, 2008), as well as Sarah Palinsvice presidential candidacyonly the second time in US politics that a major-party ticket included a emale candidate Even John McCains selection as theRepublican presidential nominee was historic, as McCain, had he been victoriousin November o 2008, would have become the oldest person ever inaugurated

president o the United StatesAs i this litany o rsts were not enough, the electoral perormance o young

citizens provided yet another history-making element to campaign 2008 TeCenter or Inormation and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIR-CLE) reports that approximately 51% o young citizens (18- to 29-year-olds)

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2 Mitchell S. McKinney and Mary C. Banwart

cast a ballot in 2008, the third highest rate o participation by young voters in apresidential election since 1972 (New Census Data Conrm Increase in Youth

Voter urnout, 2009)1

In act, the 2008 election is the third presidential electionin a row in which the percentage o young voter turnout has risen (with a 40%turnout o 18-to 29-year-olds in 2000 ollowed by 49% in 2004) While youngvoters increased their 2008 turnout, the rate o older citizens voting (those 30 andover) actually declined rom their 2004 level o participationthe very rst timesince 1972, when 18-year-olds rst voted in a presidential election, that youngvoter participation rose while older citizens participation decreased Finally, in2008, 18- to 29-year old Arican American voters achieved the highest turnoutever recorded (58%) by any racial or ethnic group o young citizens; and 2008

was the very rst time the percentage o registered young Arican American votersoutnumbered young white voters (New Census Data Conrm Increase in YouthVoter urnout, 2009)

Young voters overwhelming support or the Democratic candidate BarackObama oers yet another notable eature o the 2008 vote Across all age groups(see gure 1), young citizens provided Obama with his widest margin o supportas these voters, by more than two to one (68% to 32%), chose Obama over JohnMcCain What was it that attracted so many o our youngest citizens to BarackObama? Indeed, throughout the election much was made o team Obamas abilityto identiy with, organize, and turn out this generation o digital nativesciti-zens or whom digital technologies have been part o their entire livesby devel-

Figure 1: Voter Preerence by AgeSource: Young Voters in the 2008 Presidential Election (wwwcivicyouthorg)

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The Election of a Lifetime 3

oping campaign messages and appeals that used the very communicative practicesand language o these young citizens (Palrey & Gasser, 2008) Te New York

imeswent so ar as to label his loyal ollowing Generation O (as in Obama)Te multitude o young Obama supporters exhibited a seemingly personal rela-tionship with their candidate, orged by a steady stream o digital communica-tion as typied in the exchange that took place just seconds ater the networkscalled the election or Barack Obama Even beore he addressed the nation andthe world to herald his historic victory, the president-elect rst texted his throngo digital ollowers with a text signed simply Barack and inorming them Imabout to head to Grant Park to talk to everyone, but I wanted to write to you rst

All o this happened because o you we just made history (Cave, 2008)

From Youube to witter, to blogs, texting, and social networking, a varietyo new orms and channels o communication emerged as a key eature o cam-paign 2008 Historian Max Friedman (2009, p 343) concluded, this was theelection in which new media played a more important role than ever beore in

American history Te Pew Internet and American Lie Project (2008) ound thatnearly hal o all Americans (46%) reported using the Internet to get news aboutthe 2008 campaign Clearly, in the emerging era o digital politics, this electiondemonstrated that candidates campaign communication must now meet the ex-

pectations and communicative practices o a growing number o netizens whosepolitical engagement is increasingly perormed through various orms o digitalmessaging In describing the leading candidates technologized images, Fried-man (2009) suggests we might best comprehend the publics 2008 presidentialdecision by understanding:

the hip sensibility o Obamas campaign versus the old-school consul-tants around the Clinton machine, and it becomes clear why the leading

Democratic campaigns were sometimes compared to the clash betweenApple and Microsot Obama was the Mac, o course: youthul, creative,nimble, orward-looking, and sleekly stylish; Clinton was the PCmas-sive, corporate, sitting atop a huge pile o capital and a legacy o brandrecognition and market share that avored a conventional, risk-aversestrategy struggling to patch over the basic aws in its original design

John McCain, though who had never sent an e-mail was an IBMSelectric (p 344)

Te central thesis o this book is not to suggest that Barack Obama becamepresident o the United States simply because he was more skillul than his op-ponents in adopting the Internet and digital technologies as a campaign com-munication tool Presidential campaigns are won and lost based on a myriad oreasons, including, among other actors, candidates abilities to successully rame

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their message (the crating o a vision and development o image) while also at-tempting to rame their opponent in desired ways, the ability to strategically crat

and target appropriate messages or particular audiences, the ability to mobilizeones base supporters, and, o course, the ability to raise the hundreds o millionso dollars now needed to wage a successul presidential campaign We hope it isclear that our conceptulazation o a presidential campaign is grounded in com-munication, a process that includes communicator (candidate) crating persuasiveappeals (message/image) or desired audiences (targeted voters) and delivered viaappropriate communication channels or media In the end, we do believe that

winning and losing an election has much to do with a candidates ability to com-

municate eectivelyor notAs one traces the history o American campaigning and elections, a parallelhistory o the development o communication media and technologies is useul(see, or example, Schudsons Te Good Citizen, 1998) From handbills and broad-sides, to party parades and the rise o the partisan press, to Lincoln and Douglasdebating, FDRs radio chats, Eisenhowers televised campaign spots, Kennedyand Nixons televised debates, to Bill Clintons boxers or bries on MV andsaxophone and shades on Arsenio Hall, political leaders and candidates have longsought innovative ways, oten adopting the latest in communication media andtechnologies, to reach the public with their pleas Our abbreviated chronicling othese ew highand perhaps some lowpoints in political communication his-tory demonstrates the evolutionary nature o political campaign communication

We realize, too, that the arrival o the so-called digital revolution in politicalcommunicating did not instantaneously emerge in campaign 2008 For well overa decade, the Internet and so-called new digital technologies were evolving as anincreasingly important part o our political communication landscape

Ater very limited use o the just emerging Internet during his 1992 cam-paign, Bill Clinton launched the rst White House web site in 1994 (Whillock,1997); and within the next ew years, and certainly by 2000, web sites and e-maillists were common communication tools and practices or political ofce hold-ers and candidates at all levels Perhaps as a prelude to campaign 2008, HowardDeans 2004 Democratic presidential primary bid demonstrated the Internets so-cial networking utility or political campaigning as thousands o supporters wereorganized through meet ups and mobilized as Dean campaign volunteers TeDean campaign also established the Internets eectiveness as a tool or raisingcampaign cash (rippi, 2004) Finally, beore Obama Girl went viral in 2008,or even beore Hillary Clintons primary campaign was spooed in 2007 withthe Hillary 1984 Apple parody ad (titled Vote Dierent), the power o citizen-generated video in political campaigns was discovered by US Senate candidateGeorge Allen in 2006 when he was lmed at a rural Virginia campaign rally by

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a staer working or his opponent who uploaded Allens macaca moment to avideo-sharing web site that had been in existence or just over a year, Youube

Tus, by 2008, the digital revolution in presidential campaign communica-tion was ripe, and BarackObamacom was there to lead the revolution Friedman(2009, p 345) provides this description o Obamas digital campaign operation:ninety paid staers on the Obama Internet team, who built a 13 million addresse-mail list, sending out more than 1 billion e-mail messages by election day, main-taining an Obama presence on teen dierent social networking sitessuch asMySpace, Facebook, and BlackPlanetwith over 2 million supporters prolescreated on MyBarackObamacom, with these volunteers organizing approxi-mately 200,000 meet up events, and, on election day alone, Obamas Facebook

riends sent over 5 million messages reporting they had just cast their ballot orBarack Obama and urging their riends to do the same

Our ocus on Barack Obamas use o digital technologies in campaign 2008,and his apparent success in attracting young voters to his cause, serves as illus-tration to support the two central themes developed throughout this volume ocampaign communication studies First, the 2008 campaign, we eel, provides anexcellent case studyperhaps something o a turning point in campaign commu-nicationor us to careully examine the emerging role o digital political media

Second, as documented earlier in this chapter, available data also suggest a con-tinuing renewal in young citizens electoral engagement Again, ater young citi-zens recorded their lowest level o voting in 1996 (at 39%), weve now witnessedthree successive presidential elections in which the number o young citizens whovote has increased; and, during this same period, the gap between more older vsewer younger citizens voting has diminished with each election since 2000 (NewCensus Data Conrm Increase in Youth Voter urnout, 2009)2

Tus, with more young citizens voting, particularly during the emerging era

o digital politics, can we conclude that this revival o young citizen engagement isueled by our rst generation o digital natives responding to political campaign-ing that utilizes this generations common communicative practices and language?In act, we have little empirical evidence to help us understand iand perhapseven more importantlyhowvarious orms o digital campaign communicationmight work to engage young citizens in the electoral process Te research studiesthat ollow examine the content and eects o various sources o political inor-mation, with particular emphasis on the wide range o political digital media andhow such campaign communication inuences young citizens

Te books rst sectionCommunication for & by Digital Natives inCampaign 2008eatures a series o studies examining various orms o digi-tal campaign communication as well as the communicative behaviors o youngcitizens In Chapter 2, Te Complex Web: Young Adults Opinions about OnlineCampaign Messages, John edesco reports the results o an experimental study

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evaluating the eects o specic Internet web and video campaign messages onyoung citizens political inormation efcacy and political engagement; in Chap-

ter 3, Viral Politics: Te Credibility and Eects o Online Viral Political Messages,Monica Ancu, also through experimental analysis, assesses the perceived credibil-ity o Youube viral political videos, and determines how viral Internet ads aectviewers perceptions o political candidates; in Chapter 4, alking Politics:YoungCitizens Interpersonal Interaction during the 2008 Presidential Campaign, LeslieRill and Mitchell McKinney report the results o a longitudinal study examiningyoung citizens political talk throughout the 2008 campaign season, includinghow oten individuals engage in political talk during the ongoing presidentialcampaign, with whom they most requently talk politics, and the relationship

between these young citizens political media diet and their political talk behav-iors; in Chapter 5,A Dierent Kind o Inter-media Agenda Setting: How Campaign

Ads Infuenced the Blogosphere in the 2008 U.S. Election, Sumana Chattopadhyayand Molly Greenwood compare the issue agendas o traditional and digital cam-paign media, including campaign issues eatured in Barack Obama and John Mc-Cains Youube ads, the issues discussed by the candidates during their televisedpresidential debates, and campaign issues discussed by citizens posts to partisanInternet blogs; and, nally, in Chapter 6, Political Advertising, Digital Fundraising

and Campaign Finance in the 2008 Election, Cliord Jones provides a detailed caseanalysis o Barack Obamas digital undraising operation that resulted in Obamaraising more than $745 million, an unprecedented amount in presidential cam-paign history

While a major ocus o this book is an examination o digital campaign me-dia, more traditional modes and orms o campaign communication continueto be an important element o candidates campaign communication repertoireTe studies ound in section two, Candidate Messages & Images in Campaign

2008, analyze both content and eects o presidential advertising, debates, stumpspeeches, and news coverage In Chapter 7, Te Cumulative Eects o elevisedPresidential Debates on Voters Attitudes across Red, Blue, and Purple Political Play-

grounds, Yun and colleagues analyze assessments o Obama and McCains debateperormances and, utilizing experimental data collected nationally, they investi-gate the inuence o debate viewers geopolitical statuswhether one hails roma battleground (purple), Obama (blue) or McCain (red) state; in Chapter 8, Po-litical Engagement through Presidential Debates: Attitudes o Political Engagementthroughout the 2008 Election, McKinney and colleagues report the results o apanel study that rst tests the eects o young citizens exposure to presidentialdebates, and then tracks these same citizens and their attitudes o democraticengagement throughout the course o the 2008 campaign; in Chapter 9, CanYOU Hear Me Now? Identiying the Audience in 2008 Primary and General ElectionPresidential Political Advertisements, Jerry Miller content analyzes several hundred

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(n = 374) primary and general election presidential ads rom the 2008 campaign,examining the extent to which these ad messages contribute to a dividing o the

electorate through the rhetoric o othering; in Chapter 10, alking to Millen-nials: Policy Rhetoric and Rhetorical Narratives in the 2008 Presidential Campaign,Alison Howard and Donna Homan examine the campaign speeches o JohnMcCain and Barack Obama and the specic rhetorical strategies and appeals usedto target young citizens; and, nally, in Chapter 11, Snap Judgments: A Study oNewsmagazine Photographs in the 2008 Presidential Campaign, Karla Hunter andcolleagues conduct a visual content analysis o nearly 700 photographs rom ma-

jor US newsmagazines, evaluating the medias visual portrayal o Hillary Clin-ton, Barack Obama and John McCain and examining the extent to which visual

bias was present in the medias photographic coverage o the leading presidentialcandidates

As we noted earlier, candidate gender played a signicant role in campaign2008, including Hillary Rodham Clintons primary candidacy, as well as SarahPalins vice presidential candidacy Section three, Female Candidates in Cam-paign 2008, eatures three studies that ocus on candidate gender First, in Chap-ter 12, Running Down Ballot: Reactions to Female and Male Candidate Messages,Benjamin Warner and colleagues study young voters evaluations o emale and

male congressional candidates campaign ads, specically examining how thesevoters sexist belies, identication with ones own gender, and identication withthe gender o the candidate inuence their evaluations o the candidates; in Chap-ter 13, Videostyle 2008: A Comparison o Female vs. Male Political Candidate ele-vision Ads, Dianne Bystrom and Narren Brown continue Bystroms longstandingcontent analytic work examining candidates political advertising videostylean ads verbal, non-verbal, and lm/video production techniquesanalyzing 236campaign ads rom mixed gender (male and emale) races as well as races eatur-

ing two emale candidates, with specic attention given to the videostyles usedby candidates in our notable 2008 campaigns, including Hillary Clinton andBarack Obamas Democratic presidential primary contest, Elizabeth Dole andKay Hagens North Carolina US Senate race, Jeanne Shaheen and John SununusNew Hampshire US Senate race, and Beverly Perdue and Pat McCrorys NorthCarolina gubernatorial campaign; and, nally, in Chapter 14, Motherhood, God& Country: Sarah Palins 68 Days in 2008, Julia Spiker explains the role played bySarah Palin in the McCain presidential campaign, and through rhetorical analysiso Palins key campaign speeches describes Palins rhetorical style and most com-mon appeals incorporated in her campaign discourse

Te last section o this book, International Perspectives on Campaign2008, recognizes that the election o a US president, and particularly the 2008ObamaMcCain contest, is an event heard round the world Te our studies inthis section provide analysis o international medias coverage o the US election,

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international citizens perceptions o the US and its 2008 presidential candi-dates, and also a case study o international journalists coverage o the US presi-

dential election In Chapter 15, Perceptions o the U.S. and the 2008 PresidentialElection rom Young Citizens Around the World, Lynda Kaid and colleagues reportthe results o their multi-country (18-nation) survey o young citizens attitudestoward the US and also these citizens evaluations o Barack Obama and JohnMcCain; in Chapter 16, International Medias Love Aair with Barack Obama:

Anti-Americanism and the Global Coverage o the 2008 Presidential Campaign, Jes-per Strmbck and colleagues examine how the worlds press covered the 2008US presidential election, providing results o their content analysis o election

stories ound in the leading newspapers o 10 nations characterized by their vary-ing levels o anti-American sentiment; in Chapter 17, German Press Coverage o the 2004 and 2008 U.S. Presidential Election Campaigns, Christian Holtz-Bachaand Reimar Zeh compare German press coverage o the last two US presidentialcampaigns, with content analysis o election reporting rom Germanys two mostimportant daily newspapers, the liberal Sddeutschen Zeitungand the conservativeFrankurter Allgemeine Zeitung; and, nally, in Chapter 18, Te Emerson ElectionProject: Indonesian Journalists Visit the U.S. during the 2008 Presidential Election,

J Gregory Payne and Ee Sevin provide a case study o the Emerson ElectionProject, a public diplomacy program sponsored by the US Department o State,in which prominent journalists rom Indonesiawhere Barack Obama lived andattended school or a short period during his youthcame to the US duringthe nal weeks o the presidential election and led news reports or Indonesianaudiences rom several battleground states and major cities while they shadowedUS journalists

Te wide-ranging studies that make up this book provide a comprehensive ex-amination o a truly historic political campaign and election While ndings romthe numerous empirical analyses oer revealing answers regarding the contentand eects o various orms o political campaign communication, many morequestions and possibilities or uture research are raised We know that todaysnew modes and practices o political communication will soon be replaced bytomorrows newest innovations in campaign communication Tis, o course, is

what makes our work both challenging and exciting Indeed, we look orward tomany more elections o a lietime!

Endnotes

1 When 18-year-olds were rst allowed to vote in 1972, young voters (18 to 29)achieved their high-water mark o electoral participation at 554% In 1992, withan increase in young citizens turning out to vote or Bill Clinton, youth voting was at52% (New Census Data Conrm Increase in Youth Voter urnout, 2009)

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2 In 2000, voter turnout or 18- to 29-year olds was 403%, compared to 546% orcitizens 30 and older (a 243% gap); in 2004, younger voters rate o voting was 49%,compared to older voters at 677% (an 187% gap); nally, in 2008, younger vot-

ers recorded a 511% rate o participation, compared to older voters 67% (a gap o159%)

Reerences

Cave, D (2008, November 9) Generation O gets its hopes up Te New York imes,p S1 Retrieved rom http://wwwnytimescom/2008/11/09/ashion/09boomershtml

Friedman, M P (2009) Simulacrobama: Te mediated election o 2008Journal o Amer-ican Studies, 43(2), 341356

Millbank, D (2008, June 8) A thank-you or 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling TeWashington Post Retrieved rom http://wwwwashingtonpostcom/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/07/AR2008060701879html

New Census Data Conrm Increase in Youth Voter urnout (2009, April 28) Te Centeror Inormation & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement Retrieved June 15, 2009rom wwwcivicyouthorg

Palrey, J, & Gasser, U (2008) Born digital: Understanding the rst generation o digitalnatives New York: Basic Books

Pew Internet and American Lie Project (2008, June 15) Te Internet and the 2008 elec-

tion Retrieved July 15, 2009 rom wwwpewinternetorgSchudson, M (1998) Te good citizen Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Pressrippi, J (2004) Te revolution will not be televised: Democracy, the Internet, and the over-

throw o everything New York: HarperCollinsWhillock, R K (1997) Cyber-politics: Te online strategies o 96American Behavioral

Scientist, 40(8), 12081225Young Voters in the 2008 Presidential Election (2008, November 28) Te Center or

Inormation & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement Retrieved January 15, 2009rom wwwcivicyouthorg

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