spacetropic

saturnine, center-right, sometimes neighborly

May 2, 2007

Obama's User-Created Campaign

That's twice the Obama effort has found itself somewhat clueless at the intersection of politics and the new and rapid Internet-driven culture. The problem here - for a campaign, and for that matter, businesses - is that any old schmuck enabled by the blazing efficiencies of mass communication can attract a phenomenal audience and appear to speak on behalf of the official source.

First this happened when some clever advertising person re-worked Apple's 1984 commercial to make it a scathing critique of Hillary Clinton - and secondarily, a plug for Obama. The campaign was sort of exasperated by this. On one hand it's too aggressively confrontational for this phase of the campaign. On the other hand it was brilliant, and everyone was talking about it - and Obama.

Now they're in a dust-up with MySpace over a user-created webpage that is the most active Obama page on the popular social networking site. This is a young, energetic demographic that you don't want to alienate - which the Republicans seem to have surrendered faster than Vichy France (along with the grassroots-building efficiencies of Web 2.0 - another column). Obama first tried to buy the MySpace page, but didn't want to pay the price. Now their treatment of the owner is exacting a greater price.

These candiates are all about controlling the message. It's a problem when third parties particpate so loudly and effectively in their effort to reach voters. What they don't understand, though, is that the same Internet that allows these things to happen also has a self-correcting mechanism. If the Apple/Hillary spot had been too vicious it would have never been played. If Joseph Anthony (the kid on MySpace) was prommoting Obama for all the wrong reasons (or with too much crude behavior) then it would be less popular.

When it comes to media message, the analogy of the cathedral and the bazaar applies. When you cede control to a motivated and dispersed democracy you allow for the possiblity of excesses and errors (which also happen inside the supposedly process-controlled cathedral). But you profit greatly from the creativity and energy.

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