News and commentary about the intersection of information technology, politics, and policy presented by the members of Digital Politics, a course at Hamilton College.
It's surprising how the older generations seem to continually fail to realize the power that the internet has. Whether this be the power to raise money, or simply to get one's face associated with some key points. This is especially surprising to me in the context of a political race where you would assume the candidates would jump at any and all opportunities to get a leg up on the competition. These people are very smart and have very smart people working under them, so is the lack of internet utilization a product of the generation gap or is there something more to it?
Hillary really has no excuse for not seeing the potential effects of the internet sooner. I think that the nature of the internet creates some leeway for latecomers, but this is pretty late in the game. It will be interesting to see how much her campaign changes (and how many more videos of her appear on youtube) in the coming months, and how much of a difference these changes will ultimately make. Maybe Hillary's "ongoing effort to send out as many signs as possible that her campaign is troubled, desperate, and flailing about” will even mobilize her supporters and inspire them to create a video à la Will.i.am. that could give her campaign a huge boost.
Jonathan, that's an interesting question. I don't think that the lack of internet utilization is a product of the generation gap - that can easily be remedied by hiring someone who is young (or not), and tech savvy. Instead, I think that it is something that was brought up in the article "Marketing Presidential Candidates on the Web Goes Mainstream: But does it get votes?" I think that candidates who do not use the internet simply do not believe that it can garner votes.
3 comments:
It's surprising how the older generations seem to continually fail to realize the power that the internet has. Whether this be the power to raise money, or simply to get one's face associated with some key points. This is especially surprising to me in the context of a political race where you would assume the candidates would jump at any and all opportunities to get a leg up on the competition. These people are very smart and have very smart people working under them, so is the lack of internet utilization a product of the generation gap or is there something more to it?
Hillary really has no excuse for not seeing the potential effects of the internet sooner. I think that the nature of the internet creates some leeway for latecomers, but this is pretty late in the game. It will be interesting to see how much her campaign changes (and how many more videos of her appear on youtube) in the coming months, and how much of a difference these changes will ultimately make. Maybe Hillary's "ongoing effort to send out as many signs as possible that her campaign is troubled, desperate, and flailing about” will even mobilize her supporters and inspire them to create a video à la Will.i.am. that could give her campaign a huge boost.
Jonathan, that's an interesting question. I don't think that the lack of internet utilization is a product of the generation gap - that can easily be remedied by hiring someone who is young (or not), and tech savvy. Instead, I think that it is something that was brought up in the article "Marketing Presidential Candidates on the Web Goes Mainstream: But does it get votes?" I think that candidates who do not use the internet simply do not believe that it can garner votes.
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