Bringing the virtual community into action: A content analysis of Barack Obama's blog in the 2008 Presidential campaign.

摘要

Motivating supporters to vote and rally for a campaign has always been a crucial objective in political campaigning. In the 2008 Presidential campaign, Barack Obama was said to have harnessed the power of the Internet to get elected. This paper set out to analyze the web interactivity of his official blog, BarackObama.com, in three months during the course of the campaign. Three levels of communication---informing, connecting, and mobilizing---were used to gauge the degree of interactivity on his blog. With content analysis, this paper found that the purpose to connect with supporters was gaining ground. Also, technology has played a crucial role in facilitating interactions and directing a campaign's rhetoric. In terms of the strategy, supporters' stories and testimonies became vital in modeling the way of participation. Finally, an emergence of a social networking feature indicated the multiple roles a political blog can address.