Dear Net Politics,
It is exciting to see the separate parts of your project beginning to cohere into a single unit. With just a few hours more work, it can be tightened up significantly further. Below, we detail some strategies for doing this.
You have done a nice job introducing important differences between some of the candidates in a given year, but have not linked together your individual sections in enough places to highlight the changes across elections. By adding some short, carefully worded transition statements, you can transform a loose network of parts into a single body that communicates your argument.
Good work on both your site and in the presentation of clearly stating your historical question. You can add to the the continuity of your project by adding a concise statement of your argument to your home page. Do this with the same emphasis as your question. Hit the viewer right up front with it, at least in brief, so that it frames the upcoming data presentation for the reader.
Toward the end, you may wish to add a more elaborate discussion of the implications of your conclusions. Consider finishing with a conclusions page or section that viewers encounter after navigating through the election pages. This will bookend the case studies on both ends, leaving the reader with a clearly defined picture, as opposed to an open-ended presentation.
In both an introduction and conclusion, use language that emphasizes changes in the actions of the campaigns. Your question does not explicitly ask about change over time (although in the context of this course it seems to be implied). A bold (both metaphorically and in typeface!) statement of the argument will clear this ambiguity and prepare readers for case studies that reveal dramatic changes in both the technological landscape and campaigns’ ability to change course. Some of this is already on your front page, but it just needs to be sharpened.
In addition to clarifying your argument in your general introduction and conclusion, you want to have a through-line that carries your argument across the case studies. This can be done by adding some brief statements at the beginning and end of each election page, reminding the reader of your argument, and pointing out what is different about the election under discussion relative to the others in the project. These transitions help reader keep the argument in mind as you support it with your data.
For example, the 2004 page begins with a single line, “Different ways the 2004 presidential campaigns used the internet to connect with voters.” This is too general of a label for the posts that appear. Use a label that ties more directly into your argument so that readers are prepared from the first moment to see evidence for your argument unfold. At the beginning of the page, you should set the scene by characterizing, based on your analysis and interpretation of the sources, how social media was used in 2004. Just saying that there were “different ways” isn’t enough — be more precise. Collectively, the posts for 2004 show some serious technological challenges that inhibited using the internet for building social networks–this came across well during the presentation, but is a bit buried without a full introduction to the page.
For the 2008 page, you go directly into the posts without introduction. A short statement at the beginning that signals to the reader where this page stands relative to your argument will go a long way. A short statement at the end will set the stage for the upcoming 2012 page.
The 2012 page also lacks an introduction. Even a brief statement at the beginning will serve as a transition, indicating to the reader what type of change is occurring. Don’t assume that the audience knows how internet usage is different in 2012 than in 2008. Get the reader ready for data that is going to show how Obama’s team built on previous techniques to exploit the power of the internet at a whole new level and with a new systemic rigor.
Anton astutely pointed out during the presentation how daunting he found the large amount of data generated by and about the 2012 election (“Trouble with the abundance in front of me.”). However, he did not stop there. He showed that he is emerging from his deep dive into the data and making sense of it. By adding transitions (even as short as one sentence each) at strategic locations–beginning and ending each post, and even in between posts, you can ensure that readers who are coming to this topic brand new get the meanings that you have discovered clearly and quickly and do not get lost in the data.
The concluding paragraph on the 2012 page is a nice example of a conclusion. Although since it effectively serves as the final stop for a reader navigating through your project in chronological order, we recommend setting it off more boldly and then connected to a paragraph recapping your argument and what has been proven.
There were some great moments in all of your presentations when the candidates or their campaign staffs were described as agents of change. This brings the history alive and it forces the reader to think through the specific details of change along with you. For example, Anton’s description of Harper Reed. He serves as an example of a person who made very consequential decisions for the campaigns’ implementation of social media. Anton also did a nice job explaining how the use of Dashboard–a very specific change–had broad consequences. Another example is when Eli pointed out that Obama “made it a strategy” to connect via fifteen networks. This specificity makes it very clear that you understand, better than most, how and why the situation changed.
Be careful with sourcing. All images, charts, graphs, etc. should have a link to the original source as well as a caption specifying the source. Bibliographic information such as that listed at https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/netpolitics/2012/12/12/sources-2/ and https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/netpolitics/2012/12/01/sources/ in a string of links need to be fleshed out. As we discussed in class, we are flexible on the style, but the author, date, and basic public information need to be included. They should also include captions that give the reader a sense of how you interpret the meaning of the visual source.
Some design considerations that you might address in your paper: How could the right sidebar be adjusted to offer alternative access points to your data? Do you want viewers to have such alternatives, or do you want them to navigate in a linear path? If you decided on a linear trajectory, is it safe to assume readers will move from left to right across the top menus, or does this need to be more rigidly structured? Finally, along other lines, do you want comments on your home page? These can be turned off.
Finally: very nice job across the board employing data mining to recognize word patterns and displaying them via Wordle and Voyant.
Best,
Luke and Tom
Textual Analysis – This is pretty straight forward. There is a lot of information on the use of internet in presidential campaigns, especially in 2012. Our main priority was finding the best possible sources. We found many opinion articles and sites that cited others. We resisted the temptation to pick those sources no matter how easy it was to find them. We found sources that reinforce our argument and help answer our historical question.
Visual artifacts – We have graphs and tables that compare candidates’ PPC. We have screenshots of campaign websites from each election. We want to create a timeline on the home page of our website, that will include textual and visual data. Unfortunately, Timeline JS proved to be to difficult for us to use, so we are looking for an alternative.
Data mining – We are planning to use Voyant on the candidates’ social networking websites to determine the agenda of each campaign. In 2004, we found “fundraisers” being used regularly. In 2008, “change,” and “economy” in 2012. The candidates were using those words to connect with voters. We will attempt to show that the repeated usage of those words is an important strategy of the candidates.
Spatial history – We have talked about maps, but we couldn’t think of any that could help our argument. Since the “space” is online (internet), we don’t need traditional elements of spacial history, like maps. If we create the timeline, perhaps it can be the spacial element as well as a visual artifact.
Primary Sources:
John Kerry’s Facebook Page:
“John Kerry – Boston, MA – Government Official | Facebook.” Facebook. John Kerry, 13 Dec. 2007. Web. 01 Dec. 2012. <https://www.facebook.com/johnkerry>
John Kerry John Edwards 2004 Campaign Site:
“John Kerry John Edwards 2004 Campaign Site.” John Kerry John Edwards 2004 Campaign Site. Kerry-Edwards 2004, Inc., 3 Nov. 2004. Web. 30 Nov. 2012. <http://web.archive.org/web/20041104041706/http://www.johnkerry.com/fec/>.
George W. Bush White House Homepage:
“Welcome to the White House: President George W. Bush.” Welcome to the White House. U.S. Government, 16 Jan. 2009. Web. 30 Nov. 2012. <http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/index.html>.
Election Night 2012 Social Media: The Memes, Photos, Stats
Blue State Digital: Obama for America
http://www.bluestatedigital.com/work/case-studies/barack-obama
SEO measures for the 2012 Elections
http://www.eyeflow.com/seo-vote-2012-which-candidate-has-the-seo-vote/
Secondary Sources:
Media Bias in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election and the Effect of the Blogosphere:
Spagnolo, Justin. “Media Bias in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election and the Effect of the Blogosphere.” Conservative Blog & Conservative News Source for Right of Center Activists. Red State, n.d. Web. 01 Dec. 2012. <http://www.redstate.com/standardcandle/2009/10/19/media-bias-in-the-2008-us-presidential-election-and-the-effect-of-the-blogosphere/>.
Analyzing the Representativeness of Internet Political Participation.
Best, Samuel J., and Brian S. Krueger. “Analyzing the Representativeness of Internet Political Participation.” JSTOR. Springer, June 2005. Web. 30 Nov. 2012. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/4500191>.
Summary Data for George W. Bush 2004 Re-Election Campaign
“Bush-Cheney 2004 Elections.” Summary Data for George W. Bush: Campaign Finance/Money. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Dec. 2012. <https://www.opensecrets.org/pres04/summary.php?cid=N00008072>.
Maureen Dowd’s New York Times OpEd Piece on John Kerry’s Campaign 2004 Blog
Dowd, Maureen. “Blah Blah Blog.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 13 Aug. 2003. Web. 30 Nov. 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/13/opinion/blah-blah-blog.html?ref=presidentialelectionof2004>.
New York Times Topics: 2004 Election
“Presidential Election of 2004.” New York Times Topics: Presidential Election of 2004. The New York Times, 2004. Web. 30 Nov. 2012. <http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/p/presidential_election_of_2004/index.html>.
Social Media And Presidential Election: Impact Of YouTube, MySpace
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081031122502.htm
Media Spectacle and the 2008 Presidential Election: Some Pre-election Reflections
http://www.tft.ucla.edu/mediascape/Fall08_Kellner.pdf
2012 Presidential Election: Social Media and Internet Advertising Major Indicators
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/2012-presidential-election-social-media-191000245.html
Inside the Obama Campaign’s Hard Drive
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/harper-reed-obama-campaign-microtargeting
Our argument is the internet has been a very big part of the elections especially in recent yeas. Our project focuses on different points of views such as candidates affecting voters via the internet, web users affecting each other’s opinions in blogs, and other various tools the internet provides plays a big rule in the elections. For example this past elections you were able to place your vote online! progressively over time the impact of the internet on elections has and will continue to increase.
[entry-title]
Historical Question: How have presidential campaigns used the internet to connect with voters?
Our site is very simple, allowing for a user-friendly interface.
Home page at the top with 4 categories for 4 elections (2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012) and each member will have their own table to show our data.
It will be very much like the simple design below, which we borrowed from Website Storyboarding examples:
The website will most likely be a WordPress template, hosted by Blogs@Baruch. This is still being discussed amongst the group.
The data we will be mapping is how each presidential budget changed into order to accomendate the tools, pages and staff for each of the campaign’s web-reach.
Though we’re hitting a bit of a wall on how to find how the budgets were allocated in 2000 and 2004, there are many sources for 2012 including information by SEO on how much was spent, and shared for both Romney and Obama:
According to SEO, Romney spent $1.32 “per click” while Obama spent $1.15 “per click” during their 2012 election campaigns.
Secondary Sources for Group 1:
1.) PRESIDENTIAL COMMUNICATION
This document goes in to great detail how the Internet has become a factor during Clinton’s Presidency and how Bush Jr was the first president to establish a Twitter account and the significance of how social media and the Internet became an integral part of the election process from that point.
2.) Does the Messenger Matter? Candidate-Media Agenda Convergence and Its Effects on Voter
By using data during the early stages of the 2006 Texas midterm election, Danny Hayes show how media coverage of candidates affects the willingness for voters to vote for them. The findings in Hayes pieces show the value for candidates of enlisting new media to help pass along their message and to strengthen their influence as a political candiate.
In this piece, the authors discuss how the internet divides voters. The piece talks about how just like the elderly, those less well educated, and some minorities are less likely to use the Internet than other Americans, candidates for lower-level offices are less likely to use it than presidential and congressional candidates.
Group 1
Caroline, Anton, Eli, Cameron, Leanardo
A name for your group
NET POLITICS.
2-3 historical questions you are considering answering in your project
1.) How does social media (twitter, Facebook, tumblr, reddit, etc) affect young/first time voters?
2.) How has social media and the internet affected the 2012 Presidential Election? Does social media influence first time voters to vote?
A brief description of the expected scope of your project:
We hope to focus on 2012, but using other elections for comparison purposes, on how young voters (high school seniors/college freshman) are affected by these sites. We feel that we can talk about all the memes, gifs, and twitter accounts that have popped up during the election – including that Big Bird 2012 campaign that started during/after the first presidential debate.
A list of challenges and potential problems that you are having now, or anticipate will arise as you work on the project
Currently we find a challenge to be focusing our generally broad ideas into one big topic – the internet is a huge place and memes fall in-and-out of popularity regularly, and it’s also difficult to gauge how something as abstract as the internet is affecting something as concrete as voting for a presidential candidate.
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