It seems that the new media has other significant purposes apart from entertainment. Just ask Barack Obama. The US President is probably the first to revolutionize the application of new media as a political tool during his campaign last year, a crucial step that all but handed him the presidency.
The new media I speak of is no other than the iPhone, which Obama used on countless occasions as a strategy to communicate directly with the US citizens, his voters. As reported by Shiels (2008), Obama described the tool as a way for people to be more directly involved in his campaign to change the world. In Malaysia, they (Barisan Nasional party) would prefer to spam your phone with a barrage of SMSes urging you to vote for them. But not Obama. His approach was more subtle yet impactful.
The Obama iPhone concept represents a whole new genre within a genre. The iPhone is a genre of new media, which Obama then used with a combination of modes such as videos, photos and talking points to extend his purpose and reach out to the audience. In many ways, this adheres to the idea of "reading in a multimodal environment" described by Walsh (2006 p. 26) with the iPhone being the perfect platform to demonstrate that multimodality.
At the same time, Obama managed to identify the fields, tenors and modes that best suited the cultural or social contexts of his audience (Schirato and Yell 1996), given that most people in America were familiar with the iPhone.
Perhaps the uniqueness of Obama's approach was the personal touch he added when campaigning through the iPhone, treating his voters as friends and allies and also using the 'friends of friends' tactic which expanded his outreach (Sheils 2008). The application also ensured that the privacy of users were always protected, unlike the Malaysian election campaign where you wonder where the contesting parties even got your number from.
In truth, Obama's use of the iPhone may just be seen as a propaganda tactic, particularly by his opponents, but make no mistake, it clearly expresses a statement of intent on using the new media technology for effective politicking (Obama has also used Facebook as means of interacting with the US citizens and encouraging participatory democracy). Therefore, he has definitely epitomized the use of new media as a political tool and perhaps, those who intend to incorporate that idea, like Malaysian politicians, should follow his approach.
References:
Schirato, T & Yell, S 1996, Communication and cultural literacy: an introduction, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards.
Shiels, M 2008, 'Obama uses iPhone to win support', BBC News, 3 October, viewed 16 June 2009.
URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7649753.stm
Walsh, M 2006, 'The textual shift: examining the reading process with print, visual, and multimodal texts', Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 29. no. 1, pp. 24-37.
At the same time, Obama managed to identify the fields, tenors and modes that best suited the cultural or social contexts of his audience (Schirato and Yell 1996), given that most people in America were familiar with the iPhone.
Perhaps the uniqueness of Obama's approach was the personal touch he added when campaigning through the iPhone, treating his voters as friends and allies and also using the 'friends of friends' tactic which expanded his outreach (Sheils 2008). The application also ensured that the privacy of users were always protected, unlike the Malaysian election campaign where you wonder where the contesting parties even got your number from.
In truth, Obama's use of the iPhone may just be seen as a propaganda tactic, particularly by his opponents, but make no mistake, it clearly expresses a statement of intent on using the new media technology for effective politicking (Obama has also used Facebook as means of interacting with the US citizens and encouraging participatory democracy). Therefore, he has definitely epitomized the use of new media as a political tool and perhaps, those who intend to incorporate that idea, like Malaysian politicians, should follow his approach.
References:
Schirato, T & Yell, S 1996, Communication and cultural literacy: an introduction, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards.
Shiels, M 2008, 'Obama uses iPhone to win support', BBC News, 3 October, viewed 16 June 2009.
URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7649753.stm
Walsh, M 2006, 'The textual shift: examining the reading process with print, visual, and multimodal texts', Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 29. no. 1, pp. 24-37.
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