CALABRESE: Obama's Political Communication

In her book, The Human Condition, Hannah Arendt wrote that the potentialities of political space are boundless and unpredictable. What she meant is that there is no limit to the political imagination, and certainly that includes how political communication can and does occur. The history of communication technology includes a history of structural transformations in the means of political communication. In recent history, that has included novel uses of the radio, television, and now the Internet. Barack Obama successfully campaigned for the U.S. presidency with a promise of profound change in the role of American leadership and the prospects for American citizenship. My paper will examine that promise as it applies to political communication. Although Obama’s presidential campaign was not the first in U.S. history to rely on the Internet as a political campaign tool, by many accounts it has been the most powerful and successful. Using the Internet and mobile communications, the Obama campaign was effective in raising money, mobilizing grassroots political support, and projecting the candidate’s persona and vision into American households and around the world. In comparison with Obama’s opponents for the nomination to become the candidate for the Democratic party, and when compared with John McCain’s campaign in the general election, the Obama new-media vision and strategy helped make his campaign a political juggernaut. My paper will focus on unique aspects of Obama’s political communication strategies, with particular emphasis on his uses of new media technologies, and it will respond to the question of whether Obama’s successful techniques mark a new point of departure for the future of political communication. My paper will examine some of the promises made by the Obama campaign to rely on innovative uses of new media to govern, and it will highlight some of the directions an Obama presidency promises to take communication policy in the United States.