Maravi

Obama, media and politics

Obama, media and politics
Written by Prof Fackson Banda
Wednesday, November 12, 2008 8:56:28 AM

The world has experienced an electrifying American electoral verdict.
Obama has won! A black man in the White House! What an irony! I have never been as proud of the American electoral process as I am now, regardless of its imperfections. And I have never been as interested in politics as I am now.

I speak for many of my generation when I say Obama’s victory has sparked a political fire in each one of us that is likely to burn for a long time to come. We might become even keener on participating in the political future of our country. While the conditions in Zambia are significantly different from those in the USA, there is every possibility of a more civically and politically engaged generation. We might even begin to see the old generation truly paving way for the young. But there is certainly more to be done, not least the resolve by young people to demonstrate leadership in their various stations in life.

Now, I must bring myself back to my topic. How, on earth, did Obama do it? Clearly, there were so many factors at play, some of which were extraneous to the Obama campaign. For example, the near collapse of the US financial architecture played into his hands. The falling approval ratings of the George W. Bush administration, attributable to the Republican multilateral political agenda which resulted in the two unpopular wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, contributed towards such negative approval ratings.

The rather disorganised and lacklustre electoral campaign run by Obama’s opponent, John McCain, added to Obama’s electoral success. But we mustn’t forget that there was a deliberate electoral strategy behind Obama’s success. I contend that his strategy was less mediated and more direct. In other words, Obama assumed, as his wife Michelle Obama always suggested, that there were ‘two conversations’ in the electoral campaign. There was the mediated conversation, characterised largely by media punditry. The media houses, through their different experts and pundits, made their own conclusions. These secondary voices were supplemented by opinion polling about the candidates’ chances of winning.

Then there was the more ethnographic conversation that the Obama campaign seemed to have been tuned in to. This was made up by the primary voices of the people that the Obama campaign came into contact with. The campaign team’s strategy was to activate such people into a powerful following that would redraw the US voting map. It was for this reason that Obama’s campaign was tailored to reflect the spirit of bipartisanship that his message held out before a deeply divided nation.

His message needed to be targeted directly at all Americans, especially the so-called Generation X. Partly based upon his bitter primary against Hillary Clinton, he realised that the so-called Baby Boomers would be hard to persuade to accept his message of an America that transcended the traditional bifurcation between the so-called ‘Red States’ and ‘Blue States’. Partly by strategically using the mainstream media to project his transformational politics, he reoriented his campaign to appeal to both liberals and conservatives.

Because Obama was a new kid on the block, having announced his intentions to run for president of the US in his first term of office as Illinois Senator, he knew he would have an uphill battle to outdo the better known and more experienced John McCain. So, he chose to bypass the media and engage directly with the voters. How did he do this?

First, he met the people at their points of regular informational need, namely new media platforms. He developed an interactive Web site, in which he introduced himself and his family in a very personal manner. His strategy was to connect organically with his potential voters. His use of the internet social networking sites, such as YouTube, MySpace and Facebook, was phenomenal. He made cyber friends, not only within the US, but also throughout the world. This created a buzz around his name that resounded throughout his electoral campaign, catapulting him from a nonentity to a house-hold name.

He locked into Web-based citizen journalists, firing them up with enthusiasm to face up to the potential of new media in activating citizen participation in national politics. His constant refrain to transform the Washington-based politics of democratic elitism into a new national politics of transformation resonated with the ethos of citizen journalism. It is not surprising that many ordinary Americans, especially the young, felt politically empowered, for once agreeing ‘yes we can’. Obama literally penetrated into the inner recesses of popular culture, engaging the politically inactive and firing up their imaginations.

But, more importantly, Obama went beyond this cybernetic connection; he sought to supplement it with a personal touch of communication. His campaign team kept in constant touch with Obama’s supporters through online, mobile and traditional communications. This multimedia communication complex created the impression of an interconnected movement, with multiple centres of communicative control. Any attempts at tactical disinformation by the opponent were, for example, immediately repulsed through this nexus of communication.

Second, Obama linked his campaign message of change to his fundraising strategy. Arguably, he opted for private electoral financing for two main reasons. It would firstly enable him to raise more funds than his opponent. In turn, this would enable him to take his campaign right into the Republican strong-holds and put McCain on the defensive. Secondly, by asking ordinary Americans and other well-wishers for their financial contributions, he was enlisting his contributors in a national movement that would transform the electoral landscape. You don’t financially support someone unless you believe in their cause. By soliciting private funding, Obama was recruiting members into his movement. This was one way of engaging directly with his potential voters.

Third, Obama recruited volunteers, especially from the hitherto politically and civically disengaged segments of the American population. Such volunteers would not only be voters in their own right but also recruiters of other people like them. This would have a snowballing effect that would result in a change in the voting pattern, tipping the electoral-college vote toward Obama. He cast his net wide enough

There are lessons for Zambian politicians here. First, we need a new type of political leadership that will ignite more civic engagement and participation among Zambians. It is clear, based upon the voting patterns, that Zambians are largely polarised across ethnicity and regionalism. The nationalism of our politics of independence has given way to the ethnic-regionalism of post-independence politics. We need to think of Zambia more in terms of the nation than of the province.

Second, younger members of the voting population can make an important contribution towards re-energising Zambian politics. But such a change can only come about when the political order is realigned. A new leader, capable of exploiting new technologies and appealing to the national spirit in each one of us, can bring about the desired change. It is clear that our current crop of leaders has largely failed to energise and mobilise the country towards the politics of national unity. With new media technologies, it might become possible to reconnect the different regions and provinces of the country to the original nationalist agenda that is so important for national development. This is not to suggest that we must not highlight our geographical and ethno-cultural differences and their implications for the politics of nationalism.

Third, we need to innovate new ways of campaigning. With the unprecedented penetration of mobile communications, even in the rural areas of our country, it should, in theory, be easier to mobilise support for a national political cause. This can amount to a form of ‘direct’ political marketing. But this requires more time of the politician who would bring about change. Obama’s actual campaign took about two years. Innovative politicians need not wait for the announcement of the election date. Campaigning is an everyday affair.

Fourth, political organising and mobilising is not necessarily a mediated affair. The more direct it is, the more powerful it is likely to be. Mainstream media should be used strategically for maximum impact, such as the way Obama bought prime time on most of the major networks to broadcast his campaign infomercial. It is often difficult for politicians to extricate themselves from the idea that mass media are not necessarily the most effective way of campaigning. They are usually effective for mass distribution of the campaign message.

A political revolution is likely to come to Zambia when more grassroots-based organising and mobilising takes centre-stage, exploiting the power unleashed by new media technology. But this requires some extraneous policy improvements, such as regular voter registration, universal access to new technologies, stronger guarantees on freedom of expression, and the like.

We must push for these as a total package for transforming our politics.

Labels: BARACK OBAMA, CAMPAIGNING, FACKSON BANDA, POLITICS

posted by MrK @ 8:57 AM