Technology's Role in Elections - Free Essay Sample

Introduction

Barrack Obama ran for the presidential election in the year 2008 and had a victory win given that was the first African American to win against the Republican candidate. Obama won with popular votes. A major success factor of the campaign was through technology and social media that empowered volunteers who felt like making a difference. The social media acted as an essential tool for raising money, engaging with various donors, and advocates through social networking. The online advocacy garnered millions of supporters, therefore, outperforming McCain by four times. The campaign's social media platform allowed individuals from different parts of the state to connect and activate themselves on behalf of the election campaigns.

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Empowering People

President Obama built a unique relationship with the supporters upon the announcement of his candidacy. The campaign provided a variety of ways in which people could be involved as the users could create a profile, find local offline events, raise funds, and download various essential tools. Users became more active hence more engaged in the task. A unique campaign strategy is essential in the election campaign, such as when President Obama used traditional campaigns that focused on getting money and votes. The team efforts revolved around time elements as they were committed to engagement and involvement with the voters.

Email

Launching an email program was an important element for the election campaign; The Email team had various goals to achieve, like sending messages, mobilization, and money. The strategy of customized emails reached many people as the supporters could text Hope to subscribe.

Barrack Strategy

Traditional fundraising allowed various donors to buy access. However, the Barrack Obama election campaign employed the opposite as they selected donors of any amount who had previous stories of meeting Obama to meet and discuss various essential issues. The events were broadcast, and as a result, many people were inspired to give.

Similar elements were employed during Trump's 2016 campaign. For instance, Trump's election campaign as aided by the social media platforms that use Facebook. Cambridge hired a researcher who gathered data from people's Facebook account as a million people information was added to the set data. The data was useful as the Trump digital data used it.

Russian troll Facebook engagement seems to be similar to President Obama's strategy. The data included Facebook ads, and it focused on posting social activity that went viral. Facebook was used as a platform for organizing and promoting real events.

Conclusion

According to the social dilemma, the technology, especially social media platforms, was thought of as a medium of connecting people; however, it can predict people's behavior through various posts and sharing information over time. Its negativity outweighs social media advantages. Everything done online is always tracked, and people have been influenced and controlled by social media platforms worldwide. Therefore the platform exposes people's lives by showing what's hiding on the other side of life.