Twitter Use By Romney and Obama In 2012 Highlight the Speed of Social Media 47
HughPickens.com writes On 30 August 2012, Hollywood star Clint Eastwood took the stage to lambast President Obama. What ensued was an odd, 11-minute monologue where Eastwood conversed with an empty chair upon which an imaginary Barack Obama sat. The evening of Eastwood's speech the official campaign Twitter account @MittRomney did not mention the actor, while the Obama campaign deftly tweeted out from @BarackObama a picture of the president sitting in his chair with the words "This Seat's Taken". The picture was retweeted 59,663 times, favorited 23,887 times, and, as importantly, was featured in news articles across the country. According to Daniel Kress both campaigns sought to influence journalists in direct and indirect ways, and planned their strategic communication efforts around political events such as debates well in advance. Despite these similarities, staffers say that Obama's campaign had much greater ability to respond in real time to unfolding commentary around political events (PDF) given an organizational structure that provided digital staffers with a high degree of autonomy.
Romney's social media team did well when it practiced its strategy carefully before big events like the debates. But Obama's social media team was often quicker to respond to things and more creative. According to Kress, at extraordinary moments campaigns can exercise what Isaac Reed calls "performative power," influence over other actors' definitions of the situation and their consequent actions through well-timed, resonant, and rhetorically effective communicative action and interaction. During the Romney campaign as many as 22 staffers screened posts for Romney's social media accounts before they could go out. As Romney's digital director Zac Moffatt told Kreiss, the campaign had "the best tweets ever written by 17 people. ... It was the best they all could agree on every single time."
Romney's social media team did well when it practiced its strategy carefully before big events like the debates. But Obama's social media team was often quicker to respond to things and more creative. According to Kress, at extraordinary moments campaigns can exercise what Isaac Reed calls "performative power," influence over other actors' definitions of the situation and their consequent actions through well-timed, resonant, and rhetorically effective communicative action and interaction. During the Romney campaign as many as 22 staffers screened posts for Romney's social media accounts before they could go out. As Romney's digital director Zac Moffatt told Kreiss, the campaign had "the best tweets ever written by 17 people. ... It was the best they all could agree on every single time."
... and IRS hardware can fail on command ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Obama's camp is not only deft at social media, their control over IRS computer are equally legendary
Until now nobody can convincingly explain why those IRS computers which contain vital information can turn belly up, almost all at the same time
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Any religion is.
Tell me: Why is it that when one person says he's having this imaginary friend that even he can't see but that tells him what to do and what not to do, and that he is supposed to make everyone around him play by the rules of his buddy, that we recommend him to see a shrink, if we not send him to a mental institution outright if he continues to pester people about it.
But when a few millions do it we call it religion and they not only get governmental protection to get on everyone's nerves, th
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they also get their imaginary buddy's whims enshrined in laws.
Those are their own whims; they merely lack the courage to admit it and pretend they come from someone/something else.
Irrational and dishonest are two different things.
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i say, better a mormon than a catholic! also, scientology for me is a little iffy, but if there was a serious scientologist candidate I would give him a listen. what's up with lyndon larouche these days? now there's a great candidate.
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People made similar noises about JFK's Catholicism, but he still managed to get elected.
And while I'd vote for an atheist, I've few illusions about one actually winning in the US, even in this enlightened 21st Century of ours.
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IMHO the only thing that is different with mormons are time. When I look at different religions, they all seems crazy.
Take a look at who you elected/reelected (Score:1)
Then try to tell me that the 'speed' of social media did a damn bit of good. You still elected a bunch of crooks. The only proven aspect of the whole thing is the stupidity of the voters, especially the dumbass democrats. Few people are more stupid and gullible than they are.
Posting AC because telling the truth is considered flamebait/troll. Screw the moderators.
Doesn't matter (Score:1)
Even if one voted for the other guy the USAsians would still be ending up with a despot
American politics has turned into a tweedledee and tweedledum show
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Democrats, Republicans... anyone who thinks there's actually a difference between them is a dumbass.
Posting non-AC 'cause I got Karma to burn. And I actually stand by my statement, they ARE the same kind of bullshit with a differently colored bow tied around the turd.
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Erh... my point is EXACTLY that it matters little, if at all, which of the two sides of The Party you vote for. It makes no difference whatsoever. There is nothing that could sensibly and rationally provide a reason to vote for either Dem or Rep. They are virtually indistinguishable.
Re:Take a look at who you elected/reelected (Score:5, Informative)
Democrats, Republicans... anyone who thinks there's actually a difference between them is a dumbass.
It does seem to matter when it comes to picking Supreme Court Justices. Nobody would claim that Alito and Scalia are interchangeable with Kagan and Sotomayor. Are you really saying it doesn't matter who chooses the next few justices?
And this has an impact on a lot of real world issues: http://www.newyorker.com/magaz... [newyorker.com]
There is also the five-finger speech. It generally comes when a new clerk asks, in dismay and outrage, how a majority of the Court has arrived at a decision he or she feels is flagrantly unjust. Justice Brennan holds up his hand, wriggles his five fingers, and says, “Five votes. Five votes can do anything around here.”
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Few people are more stupid and gullible than they are.
I agree. The only people worse off the top of my head are a similar group know as "The Republicans"
Nice to have tech-savvy Administration (Score:4, Interesting)
I sure am glad to have a tech-savvy Administration in Washington for once. Finally we have someone, who uses the same devices we do and appreciates their security [washingtonpost.com]. Someone, who "gets" of building web-sites [inc.com], the importance of competition [cbslocal.com] among ISPs, and other deeply technical issues [slashdot.org].
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This "article" (scare quotes very much intended) is about social media, not technology or being tech-savvy. One has absolutely nothing to do with the other -- in fact, there's probably substance to an argument that they're somewhat opposites.
It's akin to saying someone is very skilled and more creative at using toilet paper -- and then bemoan that they're a pretty poor plumber.
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No article about a sitting President of the US is published without the aim of either helping or hurting his image and objectives. If the article puts positive light on him, then it was meant to help him and it is therefor perfectly legitimate for his opponents (like myself) to harp at the failures.
That may be a valid analogy, but you should've used it years ago (2008)
interesting tradeoff seen in industry as well (Score:2)
Having fewer people with a higher degree of autonomy manning these kinds of communication channels does tend to produce more of an identifiable "voice", along with the ability to respond to things faster and insert your message into current events/discussions. The downside is that it's also somewhat more prone to gaffes or off-message comments, basically for the same reason, that the messages are written on the spur of the moment by one or a few people and don't go through a more "heavyweight" approval proc
Despite what hipsters think (Score:3)
Despite what hipsters think, Twitter is just a sideshow to what's really on display here, namely something that's been a staple of military leadership training for a loong time.
One of the first rules of war is: A plan of battle never survives first contact with the enemy unchanged.
The lesson in the above statement is that you can't just draw up a single grand plan, and stick to it no matter what. The reality is that any plan will always contain elements of estimates and guesswork. Therefore you make plans for different eventualities, and learn to adapt between different plans, and even drawing up new plans based on what you've learned.
In this case, the Republicans stuck to a single grand plan, with carefully scripted events. The democrats had a grand plan that outlined the goals needed, initial plans, and separate plans to adapt to unfolding events.
Twitter was just one tool in a large toolbox to achieve the above, and is in itself nothing special. Similar things have been spread via email, SMS, etc etc before, in other countries.
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Were the Republicans actually trying to run an election campaign, or just a Get The Obama Out Of Office campaign?
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"Close, but not quite. You come up with a goal and overall strategy and make sure everyone understands them. Then you split the overall goal up into smaller goals and assign those out to lower level units that will meet them; continue splitting it up at lower and lower levels until every soldier understands his goal and how it contributes to the overall goal. Then you allow each level to adjust as needed to succeed."
What you are describing is the overall flow from strategic through operational down to tacti
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Yes, but it was the overarching strategy to focus on rapid response, to allow staffers independence, to allow the use of Twitter and similar, that differentiated the Democrats from the Republicans
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Late (Score:2)
Is there any part of this we didn't know well over two years ago?
Perhaps (Score:3)
But Obama's social media team was often quicker to respond to things and more creative.
Or perhaps, Republicans are just slower and less creative about somethings, but certainly not everything. For example, take their plans for universal/affordable health care, immigration, the minimum wage, women's issues, the working poor, or ... oh wait.
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Seriously, we are comparing the effectiveness of public relation social media teams as if it 'fucking' means something, seriously what the fuck. People pointing to this, should be saying, why the fuck bother, it is all public relations bullshit, as completely total and utterly meaningless as it can be. Proof positive that tweeting on the internet has no greater value political than birds tweeting in a tree as certainly far less social value because at least the birds tweeting sounds good, well, most times.
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tell you what ... (Score:1)
Binders full of tweets (Score:2)
Next election, they should keep them in a rolodex.
it worked (Score:3, Insightful)
On 30 August 2012, Hollywood star Clint Eastwood took the stage to lambast President Obama. What ensued was an odd, 11-minute monologue where Eastwood conversed with an empty chair upon which an imaginary Barack Obama sat.
it wasn't odd. it was the perfect distilled essence of the conservative movement - an elderly white guy yelling at his own imagined version of a black person.