The Advancement of Technology Has Had Major Effects on Political Campaigns Throughout History

Technology has a profound effect on how political campaigns operate, such as allowing candidates to mobilize voters and increasing the amount of advertising. Candidates throughout history have benefitted from technological advances, as it has allowed them to be more efficient in getting their message out and raising money, all while being more cost-efficient to the campaign. In addition, candidates have been known to use technology to play to their strengths; John F. Kennedy used the television to show off his youth and his good looks, and Barack Obama used the Internet to appeal to the young voter demographic.

Technology has allowed political campaigns to evolve advertising strategies, such as Television commercials and Social Media followings

Political campaigns strive to create advertising that is influential on voters while keeping the costs low. When the television first became popular back in the 1950's, candidates took advantage of its new style to advertise. Starting with the 1952 election, candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower created an animated commercial, which featured his campaign slogan "I like Ike", along with a jingle. During this time period and into the 1960's, campaign advertisements were created by Madison Avenue ad men, and Eisenhower's advertisements certainly fit the mold that these ad agencies were known for. This was the first usage of "spot" advertising in the country's election history.

Eight years later, in 1960, John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon took part in the first ever presidential debates. By nature, these were also the first debates ever to be televised. Many have argued that the televising of these debates heavily favored Kennedy. Viewers of the debate on television mostly believed that Kennedy had won -- this was due to his youthful looks and his use of body language. Meanwhile, radio listeners agreed that Nixon had won the debate. Kennedy then went on to win the election that year, thanks in part to his use of new technology and his ability to play to his strengths.

Today, people obtain much of their political information from the Internet. A Pew Research Center article documents the role of the Internet during the 2008 election and shows results that suggest that 60% of Internet users obtained their political and electoral information from the Internet, which had stayed consistent with an increasing trend of Internet use for political information. This was a trend that Democratic candidate and current president Barack Obama utilizes well. Obama won around 70% of voters under the age of 25, and did so through Facebook, among other social media sites. 

However, elections expert at the University of Maryland Professor James Gimpel is unsure of the effects of social media on the actual mobilization of voters. Gimpel conducts experiments which test the effect of certain treatments on voter turnout. For example, research shows that generic email blasts to voters does not usually lead to increased voter turnout, whereas door-to-door canvassing has been a successful method of mobilizing voters. But what does effect does social media actually have on voter turnout?

Different mediums of communication have greater impact on different aspects of campaigns

Television, Internet, radio, and phone are all mediums of communication that campaigns use to get in contact with their voters. In terms of persuasion, television is probably the most effective medium. This is because it allows viewers to see and hear candidates in campaign ads, speeches, and debates, among other things. Voters who may be on the fence about a candidate could be persuaded to switch because of the way a candidate delivers his or her speech or because of a negative campaign ad against an opposing candidate. When it comes to mobilization and actually turning out voters, Gimpel says that the phone is the most useful tool, because it can be a good multi-functional, low-cost device. 

This is where some of the downsides of the Internet or more recent technological developments may come up short when it comes to campaigns. Often, brand new technologies have not been tested for their effectiveness yet, but political campaigns can be quick to employ them. An example of this would be Internet advertising. So far, not enough experiments have been done on the actual effect that these ads have on voter turnout. This can lead to a move away from more traditional campaigning techniques that have been proven to work before. Many campaigns take a risk while employing these new technologies due to the fact that they may actually prove to be less effective than they would hope.

Today's technology makes campaigns more cost-effective, while allowing voters to become more easily engaged

New, online political tools allow campaigns to complete tasks in quicker, broader fashion than previous tools, just as is true for every industry. This in turn results in potential voters being able to participate more in an election through donations and volunteering, while not having to necessarily devote as much time or resources. In the summer of 2012, the Federal Exchange Commission allowed campaigns to accept donations via text message. In addition to this, donations online or via email have been increasing over the past several elections. Of the 13% of voters that donated money during the 2012 election, 50% donated online/via email, while 10% used their cell phone to either donate via text or an app on their smartphone. This technique can help candidates raise smaller amounts of money from a wider variety of supporters, rather than receiving large sums of money from just a few donators. It also allows donators who do not have large amounts of money to donate to still stay engaged in the donation process.

As previously mentioned, the Internet and cell phones provide more and more people with political news as the years go by. But it also increases political engagement, as exampled by the text message donations that started in 2012. It also allows campaigns to be more cost-effective in relation to the reach they have and the number of people their efforts effect.  Instead of hiring workers or finding volunteers to go door-to-door, campaigns can canvass on a much higher level while reaching more people using less resources. Although presidential campaign costs have increased every year since the 2004 Election, the amount of tools that a campaign has has increased a sizable amount.

FiveThirtyEight's Interactive Flight Map Shows Flight Time Added Based Off of the Airport and Airline You Use

FiveThirtyEight created an interactive map that allows users to discover which airports and airlines add the most time to their flight based off of their destination airport. Users can choose which airport they are leaving from and which one they are flying to. After this happens, the user is shown the target flight time (how much time the flight should take), the amount of time added by the airports, and then finally, the typical flight time (how much time the flight usually takes). The visual shown is a bar from one airport to the other on the map, with a different color bar depending on the average travel time of each flight. I think this is an interesting way of letting people know about travel times and which airports and airlines are the fastest. However, I don't think the visual representation of the map adds much to the data itself. It does show the general speed of the route performance (slow, regular, or quick), but I think it would be better if some of the numbers were on the map as well. In addition, the "Extra time added by airlines" visual seems a bit complicated to me and could probably be more simplified.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/interactives/flights/

Study shows positive relationship between video game consumption, negative attitudes and beliefs about women among adults

A study released in early 2015 has confirmed a relationship between video game usage and rape myth acceptance (RMA) via interpersonal aggression and hostile sexism. While studies have already been done researching relationships between sexism and media consumption, video game research has been limited despite its rapid growth as a form of widely-accepted media. This can confirm the notion that video games may have more effect on media users than television, or any other more passive form of media.


Jesse Fox, PhD., a professor at The Ohio State University, conducted this study among 351 adult men and women after noticing that video games generally feature a more objectified version of women than other forms of media, such as television. This could be due to the fact that there is a general idea that more men play video games than women.

However, reports were released back in late 2014 that claimed adult female gamers were the largest gaming demographic, surpassing the often-stereotyped under-18 male demographic. So if just as many, if not more women are playing video games, what explains the less diverse, more objectified portrayal of women in video games? And if highly interactive mediums such as video games do have high effects on consumers, why does it continue?

Maybe, the issue lies in the overall effect of video games on media users. Media scholar Marshall McLuhan was a major advocate of the medium theory. Medium theory states that the medium used to transmit messages was far more important than the actual message content. He once said that, "the medium is the message." McLuhan is credited with coining the theory "technological determinism", which says that technology causes certain behaviors. According to McLuhan, the positive relationship between video game consumption and hostile sexism is simply caused by the medium of video games itself.

To compare the mediums of video games and television, television has obviously been around much longer than video games. Television was once what many consider video games today; it was revolutionary for its time and was rapidly gaining popularity, where it eventually got to the point that every household had a television. The statistics of video game usage today suggest that video games are wildly popular among all ages and gender today. While television was gaining similar popularity in the 20th century, it had very influential programming and major effects on its consumers. Shows like "Leave it to Beaver" and "The Brady Bunch" in the 1960's portrayed what many people thought of as the "ideal family", and the emergence of The Simpsons in the 1990's further promoted stereotypes and desensitized views of family through animation. Today, video games such as "Call of Duty" and "Grand Theft Auto" have had similar effects of desensitization, but simply through a more interactive medium.


There are those, however, who naturally disagree with with McLuhan's Medium Theory. Critics of the theory claim that McLuhan failed to recognize the relations of power and dominance that came with the rise and shaping of media. They also say that it can ignore key factors such as environmental factors, semiotics, and other important items media often use. Many see McLuhan as a "utopian", who thought that all improvements in technology would lead society to become better as a whole. In addition, a naysayer may claim that video games have been proven not to lead to aggressive behavior in children or adults.

If these critics are correct in their opinions, how does one explain the connection stated previously in the study discussed above? It may simply be the fact that game producers and designers are not aware of the fact that the male gamer stereotype is slowly declining. But the fact remains, that a highly interactive medium like video games does have more effect on consumers in some aspects than less interactive forms of media. This aspect happens to be the portrayal of women and the inherent sexism that can come with playing video games.


Society has been defining what women should look like for a while in all forms of media, not just video games. For example, Victoria's Secret came out with an advertisement in late 2014 with the tagline "the perfect body" - the advertisement featured women who were all similar looking in that they possessed qualities that men and women today would generally consider to be attractive. After receiving backlash on the ad, the company decided to pull the tagline and change it to "a body for every body." So while media still attempts to portray these images through print, television, and Internet advertising, consumers are recognizing this and are calling for change.

But why is this only happening in advertisements and television programming, while there has been no call for portrayal in video games? This could be because video games are still a relatively new medium for media. Those who agree with McLuhan would say that it is not just the content we should be looking at, but that the medium of video games is the most important determinant in this conversation.

My name is Josh Berkowitz. I am a sophomore at the University of Maryland, College Park. My interests include Maryland college basketball (among other sports), government and politics, music, and movies. My goals are currently to excel academically and socially throughout my time in college.