The War Between Politics and Twitter

So how did Obama really connect with the public during the nerve-wrecking elections of 2008? Through the use of Twitter, Facebook and other media ecologies, Obama was able to cut his campaign costs almost in half. The intertwining between these new facets of the technological world are currently going through such extreme exploitation that politics will eventually have to resort to new ways of campaigning and saving money. However, as stated by in the BBC Newsnight article "Twenty reasons why it's kicking off everywhere, ‘they’ clearly up to a point are." [1] What does this exactly mean for the future of politics and technological medias? Obviously a new growth spurt is about to occur.

Because of the success of Obama's campaign, many of the up and coming candidates for the 2012 election will be using the same methods that Obama used to gain popularity. However, what they fail to recognize is that this method is a thing of the past. Technology is evolving at such a fast pace that the methods used four years ago are outdated and will not use get the message across. Changing is forever changing. In order to stay ahead of the wave, it would be wise to somehow use media internet advances such as de.li.cious, a site that allows you to keep track of links and stories on one page and browse through others favorite links. A place to combine and share everything that there is to see (because there is so much to see on the internet) might prove to reveal the most worthwhile result for the 2012 campaign.

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[1] Mason, Paul (2011) ‘Twenty reasons why it’s kicking off everywhere’, Idle Scrawls BBC, <http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/paulmason/2011/02/twenty_reasons_why_its_kicking.html>

How Music Got Real.

The music industry today is one of the best examples that demonstrates how its chemistry and make-up is changed by its creators. New technologies develop and take a life of their own once we create them.

It tries to save itself and takes other ecologies and braids them in together to support itself. The industry, whether it be music, the media, or film, will rebuild itself if it's broken and if it sees that it's in danger of breaking down, it will use it's resources to ensure that it doesn't break down. For example, when record labels started losing money because of P2P, labels began to complain but they did not mention how much revenue they began to make because of the shows and the extra media products. Artists and celebrities today heavily rely on Twitter, blogs, and Facebook to connect with their audiences. They may not be collecting as much revenue from actual music sales, but the other side stuff that artists do today has proven to be a profitable market.

The music industry has been forced to diversify and rely on various ecologies such as Twitter, Facebook, and even Youtube to thrive.  “As they diversify, ecologies seem idled with transversals (Genosko 2003; Guattari 2000), connections that cannot be reduced to any one ecology or discipline and transform all those they pass through.”[1] It's not that there is a loss in music sales and such, it’s just that there is a combining of various industries and ecologies that build up the framework that supports it.

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[1] A Murphie “The World as Clock: The Network Society and Experimental Ecologies’ in Topia: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, 2004, 11:117-139, p. 123.