The Media Are The Message?
Why Obama Won author Greg Mitchell has put a strong and clear claim on the table regarding the role of new media technologies in the Obama campaign, its victory, and the rewriting of the rules for how to run for president. I think Greg is right that these technologies were a key to the victory, but because of doubts about the relative weight of this factor, I want to raise some questions.
With apologies to Marshall McLuhan, some of my questions ask whether embracing new media required some other key decisions as a logical extension, or whether those were separate choices. For instance, one trade-off for a campaign that puts a premium on empowerment of supporters and a widespread sense of ownership is diminished control. Which comes first, adoption of social networking modes of operation, or the desire to base your campaign on cultivating the maximal involvement of every supporter? When President Obama spoke to voters in terms of the challenges we all share as a nation, to what extent was that shaped by the new media environment, or vice versa? How about the "no drama" teamwork ethic that came down from the top of the organization? Perhaps these are all bound up with each other, but if so, shouldn't we be talking about them as pieces of a larger whole, rather than as technologically driven (even using the wider sense of technique)?
And then what about the "post-politics" aspect of the campaign? Maybe it's because I'm also a pointy-headed (not to mention large-eared) 47-year-old, but I place a lot of stock in the generational element. I think the do-whatever-works pragmatism and the baby-boomer-fights-over-the-60s-have-nothing-to-do-with-me rejection of stale debates were significant, and I'm not sure if they're inextricably bound with the new media.
Well-written post. Relevantly, as many nationally influential voices have repeatedly noted, Obama--born 1961--is part of Generation Jones, born 1954-1965, between the Boomers and Generation X. Google Generation Jones, and you'll see it’s gotten a ton of media attention, and many top commentators from many top publications and networks (Washington Post, Time magazine, NBC, Newsweek, ABC, etc.) specifically use this term to describe Obama.
Here's a recent op-ed about Obama as the first Generation Jones President in USA TODAY:
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20090127/column27_st.art.htm
I'm a pointy-headed, big-eared GenJoneser also, and proud of it...
March 3, 2009 4:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Those born 1954-1960 not baby boomers? Ridiculous! What revisionist nonsense!
Do you need a graph? Clear boom in birth rates, 1946-1962:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Birthratechart.png
That's why it's called the baby boom, it's very simple, if you were born in the years before the fall of the birth rate, you're part of the boom! You can't get out of it, that's what you are. You may not feel a cultural affinity with those born in 1947, but you're still a boomer.
VJ day was Sept. 1945. There were a heck of a lot of youngins getting out of the service circa 1946, throw in 4 years of G.I. bill college, 1947-1952, marry and start cranking out babies, 1952 on. The results are in the graph. Especially if your dad served in WWII, you are most definitely part of the post-war baby boom, but it's not a requirement, if you were born in the boom years on that graph, you're in it.
March 3, 2009 11:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, but Obama is a bonafide Boomer. No question or debate on that point. He's a boomer.
March 4, 2009 1:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ah, but ---
Obama's a "late Boomer" and as Robert Frost would say, that make[s] all the difference.
March 4, 2009 2:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, come on!
A three-legged yellow dog could have beaten McCain as long as the dog was wearing Democratic colors.
Obama won when he beat Hillary, and Hillary lost for the same reason Humphrey lost to Nixon -- failure to cut their ties with their past stupidities.
New media? Old media? Side shows for masturbating wannabe-intellectuals.
March 3, 2009 10:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with you to a certain extent, but with the following major exception...
Yes, the Democrat, any Democrat, should have slaughtered McCain. But that wasn't how things were playing out last fall in part because Obama's race kept many white voters from coming to his side. Thus, as it was, until it became crystal clear that the economic collapse had occured, McCain was still very much a viable candidate. It is not at all clear that Obama would have won had the economic collpase not occured. He might have won anyway, but it is not clear that he would have won.
Obama's general election campaign was pretty much a rerun of the milque toast Kerry campaign of four years before except with a new slogan and the candidate himself was much more attractive and charismatic in all respects, plus he inspired his supporters where Kerry did not and apparently just could not. But Obama's charisma and inspirational speeches weren't enough to put him over the top.
The Republicans were on a relentless campaign of attack and chracter assassination. Obama's campaign barely lifted a finger to counter the endless barrage of lies and smears coming from McCain and the Republican Party. Obama's message was consistent, but did nothing to defend him from the attacks which did have some effect. The Republicans knew what they had to do and executed their plan without deviation from the playbook. It came perilously close to working. Obama could have swung back but apparently he and his people had faith in the power of their message and so they simply refused to fight back.
The Obama message was enough to deflect the Republicans from delivering a knockout punch, but it was not enough for Obama to knockout McCain either. What put McCain flat on his back and the blow from which he never got up off the canvas was the economic catastrophe which was brought into high focus during the debate over the great heist, er, I mean the Banker's Bailout bill last fall. This was the critical and decisive factor in the campaign. Without it, Obama may have won the election anyway in a squeeker, but it is uncertain how the election would have ended up had the economy not tanked as dramatically and noticeably as it did last fall.
March 4, 2009 1:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Though "the baby-boomer-fights-over-the-60s" seems to mean something to bloggers and blog-readers, I can't be alone among boomers in not knowing what you're talking about. These struggles must have taken place in certain magazines or in academia or perhaps the image is just a useful one for a generation that found boomers annoying.
March 4, 2009 9:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
artappraiser and oleeb:
You are confusing the post-WWII demographic boom in births with the cultural generations born during that era. Many experts now believe it breaks down this way:
DEMOGRAPHIC boom in births: 1946-1964
Baby Boom GENERATION: 1942-1953
Generation Jones: 1954-1965
Generations are a function of the common formative experiences of its members, not the fertility rates of its parents.
March 6, 2009 12:55 AM | Reply | Permalink