One of the initially things I found interesting in our class discussion on American politics is how different their political campaigns are. We talked about how during the presidential election, candidates can buy as many minutes as they need for television adds and that their campaigns are run by professionals. This contrasty other countries, such as Spain for example, where television minutes are regulated and a candidates campaign is done by members of their own political party. While I was at first taken back by the contrast between political systems, I actually found it to be quiet interesting. Regulating minutes would help candidates from smaller parties, like the Green Party, get a more fair shot in the race. By making the playing field more equal for all candidates it allows there to be more candidates, as opposed to how American politics just have two main parties that make up the government because candidates who belong to these parties have the support and funding to be in an election.
Another interesting topic during this class was how different president were able to use various forms of media and news sources to reach their voters and to create a strong campaign. I was aware of how Barack Obama used social media to reach the everyday voter and how this helped him win the elections, but I wasn’t aware of how FDR used radio during his presidency. To summarize, between 1933 and 1934 FGR had a series of Fireside Chats in which he talked about his policies in a way that was relatable to the everyday American. I found this to be extremely interesting because we typically don’t learn about how past presidents’ tools helped them earn or maintain their presidency. To me, the idea of having campaign managers and strategies to help grow a voter base through media seemed like a very recent trend, when in reality this has always been taking place in American politics.
Barack Obama in a sense was the fire president to use social media to reach his voters. As we learned in class, Obama had public accounts on nine different social media sites, where as Mitt Romney had just five. It was also the type of account that gave Obama the advantage, including sites like Instagram, Spotify, YouTube, and Pinterest. These types of social media helped him reach a younger generation who primarily gets their news from these sources instead of traditional ones like television, newspapers, radio, etc.
Lastly, the Trump/Hillary campaign was especially unique between both candidates used the same forms of social media and were fairly equally active on them during their campaigns. However, social media polarized this elections between Trump supporters would see news posted by other Trump supporters and same with Hillary supporters, therefor being more biases to one candidate. However, other factors seemed to contribute to Trumps election, although his use of turning himself into a brand on social media also gave him a huge advantage during the race.
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