FACEBOOK, TWITTER AND BARACK OBAMA: NEW MEDIA AND THE 2008 PRESIDENTIALELECTIONSA Thesissubmitted to the Faculty of the
Graduate School of Arts and Sciencesof Georgetown University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
degree ofMaster of Public Policy

By

Alex Budak, B.A.

Washington, DC
April 1, 2010

Copyright 2010 by Alex Budak
All Rights Reservedii

FACEBOOK, TWITTER AND BARACK OBAMA: NEW MEDIA AND THE 2008PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONSAlex Budak, B.A.
Thesis Advisor: Andrew Wise, PhD
ABSTRACTPolitical strategists and analysts have dubbed Barack Obama’s 2008
Presidential victory as the “Twitter election,” a “triumph of new media in politics,”
and “the election decided by Facebook. But, does the reality match the rhetoric?
This paper examines the role of new media in the 2008 Presidential election, asking
the question of whether the consumption of both new media and old media in the2008 Presidential election have a significant effect on a person's likelihood to engage
in the political process by voting, or whether disparities exist by type of media.
Through a quantitative analysis based on data provided by the Pew Center’sInternet and American Life project, this study finds that contrary to the popularrhetoric, old media consumption still remains dominant in explaining voting
behavior. This study characterizes new media as that which is two-way incommunication and has low barriers to entry and virtually zero marginal cost ofiii

participating -- as contrasted with old media which remains cost-prohibitively
expensive.
After controlling for a number of demographic variables, the paper utilizes a
probit regression model on the likelihood of a person voting with independent
variables representing both new media and old media consumption patterns andactions. The model shows that, holding all other variables constant, getting most of
one’s information about the election through old media sources such as television,
radio and newspapers has a statistically significant and positive effect on thelikelihood of a person voting. Similar new media variables -- including “friending” acandidate on a social networking site and discussing the election on Twitter -- fail tohave significant explanatory powers.
The implications for this manifest themselves both in political strategy as
well as campaign finance reform laws. On the political strategy side, this paper
suggests that campaigns -- contrary to popular discourse -- cannot simply rely upon
new media to engage voters. As a corollary, these results show that because themuch more expensive old media remains dominant, campaign finance laws need tobe reconsidered. By reducing the financial barriers of entry -- which as this paper
shows are prohibitively high as a result of the importance of expensive old media -greater competition will be introduced for elected positions. Through greateriv

competition, a marketplace of ideas is strengthened, resulting in a more efficient -and ultimately more representative -- government. This paper concludes that in an
examination of new media and the 2008 Presidential election, the rhetoric simply
does not match the quantitative reality.

v

To My Parents: for everything.

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1.
Chapter 2.
Chapter 3.
Chapter 4.
Chapter 5.
Chapter 6.

Introduction........................................................................................1
Background........................................................................................4
Literature Review ..............................................................................8
Theoretical Model............................................................................17
Data and Descriptive Statistics ........................................................21
Results..............................................................................................24
Control Variables.............................................................................25
Media Consumption Variables ........................................................29
Old Media Variables..................................................................30
New Media Variables ................................................................34
Results Summary .............................................................................38
Chapter 7. Policy Implications and Conclusion ................................................40
References .............................................................................................................47

vii

Chapter 1. Introduction
Even as early as the 2000 US Presidential elections, scholars have debated therole that new media has played in influencing voter participation.1 These discussions
have since intensified, and, thanks to the proliferation of internet access nation-wide,
the impact of different types of media in the 2008 elections became a central issue.
Especially at the national level, the media has referred to Barack Obama’s historic
electoral victory as the “Facebook election,” the “Twitter election,” and even the “newmedia election.”2 But, does the reality match the rhetoric? This paper examines therole of new media in the 2008 Presidential election, asking the question of whether the
consumption of both new media and old media in the 2008 Presidential election have asignificant effect on a person's likelihood to engage in the political process by voting,or whether disparities exist by type of media. Through a quantitative analysis, thisstudy finds that contrary to the popular rhetoric, old media consumption, rather than
new media consumption, still remains dominant in explaining voting behavior.
The paper examines the hypothesis that the consumption of both new media
and old media in the 2008 Presidential election had a significant effect on a person's
likelihood to engage in the political process by voting. The alternative hypothesis,
1

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "New Media and the Elections." MIT. 19 Oct. 2000. Web. 16
Feb. 2010. <http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/forums/elections.html>
2
US News & World Report. Barack Obama and the Facebook Election." US News & World Report. 19
Nov. 2008. Web. 16 Feb. 2010. <http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/2008/11/19/barack-obamaand-the-facebook-election.html>.

1then, is that differing consumption patterns of new media relative to old is associatedwith a disparate likelihood of voting.
The data come from the “2008 Post-Election Voter Engagement” survey3
conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Data analysis is thenperformed using a probit regression using whether or not one voted as the dependent
variable, and media consumption patterns and actions as the independent variables -after controlling for demographic data.
This paper examines the explanatory power of different media to take a nonvoter and convert them to a voter. It does not, however, address the ability of media
sources to encourage a specific voting behavior -- i.e. voting for a specific candidate
rather than another. Its focus is on explaining the role of various media in getting aperson to the ballot box who, in the absence of a specific pattern of media
consumption, would not do so.
Though the popular narrative states that new media is fundamentally changing
the way in which candidates and citizens engage in the political process relative to oldmedia, this paper will provide the quantitative analysis through which such rhetoric canbe judged. The implications for this study are pivotal in two areas: political strategy
and campaign finance reform. Politically, this study will inform whether or not future3

Pew Center for Internet and American Life. Post Election Voter Engagement. 30 Dec. 2008. Raw data.
Http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2008/PostElection-Voter-Engagement.aspx, Washington, DC.

2campaigns would be wise to eschew much of their focus on old-media in favor ofconcentrating on voter engagement through new media sources such as Facebook andTwitter. Secondly, following the United States Supreme Court’s recent decision
rejecting corporate spending limits in elections,4 the issue of campaign finance reform
has once again reached the national consciousness. The consequences for whether or
not new media holds strong explanatory power in voter engagement are crucial for the
future of campaign financing. If the results show that, in fact, relatively inexpensive
new media is much more salient than costly old media in engaging voters, this would
be a strong argument that campaign finance laws are not necessary moving forward ascandidates would be able to compete in elections more fairly as a result of a decrease inmedia budgets. However, if the data prove that new media is less salient than therhetoric surrounding it suggests and that expensive old media is still dominant, thiswould provide a strong argument in favor of the need for campaign spending limits to
reduce the financial barriers of entry in campaigns, encourage competition and allow amarketplace of ideas to flourish.

4

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. ___ (2010)

3

Chapter 2. Background
In providing a context in which to understand how new media play a role inelections, this paper begins by providing definitions and examples of new media as aphenomenon as well as ways in which new media was utilized in the 2008 Presidential
election -- before showing why this is a pertinent and important issue in American
electoral politics.
Though just forty years removed from the first electronic message being senton the internet from Leonard Kleinrock’s lab at UCLA,5 and just twenty years removed
from Tim Berners-Lee proposing the World Wide Web, the internet has fundamentallychanged the world in myriad ways. Whereas decades ago it would be unheard of toconsume media from so many different sources, today it is commonplace to rely uponvarious media for information and entertainment.
However, while many may associate any internet-hosted content as new media,
this paper argues that a more narrow definition of new media is appropriate. Whereas
print and television media once confined their content solely to print or the airwaves,today virtually all major media outlets have a web presence as well. Analyzing thedata from the Pew Center’s Internet and American Life show that even people who do
not spend a lot of time on the internet still feel comfortable using the internet for
5

Cerf, Vint, Barry Leiner, and David Clark. "A Brief History of the Internet." ACM SIGCOMM
Computer Communication Review 39.5 (2009): 22-31. Web.
<http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1629613>.

4

gathering news and information. New media -- also often referred to as Social Media - is different, however, in its collaborative and interactive nature that extends beyond
simply reading an online version of an article previously written with ink on paper.
This study characterizes new media as that which is two-way in communicationand has low barriers to entry and virtually zero marginal cost of participating -- ascontrasted with old media which remains cost-prohibitively expensive. Whereas old
media depends upon expensive advertising revenue for sustainability, candidates andcampaigns are able to participate in new media such as Facebook and Twitter with
virtually no upfront cost, with a marginal cost of becoming heavily involved that is
virtually zero as well. During the 2008 campaign, 14.5 million hours of campaignrelated videos were watched on YouTube. While the cost of this was virtually free due
to utilizing new media models, to attain the same viewership levels on television would
have cost campaigns $45 Million.6
Because of the interactive nature and extraordinarily cost-effective model of
new media, candidates and their staffs can engage with supporters and potential votersin ways previously unthinkable through old media. The data set, for example, captures
whether people surveyed have “friended” a candidate on Facebook -- allowing them
automatically to receive updates from the candidate embedded within the social
6

Caine Miller, Claire. "How Obama's Internet Campaign Changed Politics." How Obama's Internet
Campaign Changed Politics. New York Times, 7 Nov. 2008. Web. 13 Feb. 2010.
<http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/how-obamas-internet-campaign-changed-politics/>.

5

network -- as well as if people discussed the election on Twitter -- allowing anyone tobroadcast a message visible to potentially millions of users around the country (and,for that matter, the world). New media fundamentally alters the power balance
between content creators and content consumers, and, as a result, can have important
implications for how these online behaviors impact offline voting characteristics.
Whereas old media sources such as radio and newspapers have a single author
broadcasting their opinions and stories to multiple people, new media allows foranyone to share their thoughts and news with others, transforming the paradigm fromthat of a “one to many”structure to a collaborative and interactive model of media andinformation consumption.7 This means, in the example of the 2008 election, thatpeople could discuss -- with both friends and strangers -- their thoughts on thecandidates and election-related news. Further, through “friending” and following
candidates, people immersed in the new media world could interact with, ask questionsof, and stay up to date in real-time with the candidates -- directly from their campaigns-- rather than relying upon an intermediary source.
This paper seeks to quantify the explanatory power of different forms of media
to compel a person who otherwise would not vote to do so as a result of their media
consumption. Certainly it is possible that media consumption patterns may influence
the decision to vote for a particular candidate; however, this analysis lies outside the7

Jarvis, Jeff. What Would Google Do? London, U.K: Harper Collins, 2009. Print.

6

scope of this paper. This paper, then, focuses on the difference between voting and
not voting which may be different from the decision to vote for a particular candidate.
Having established a groundwork for understanding how new media differsfrom old media -- both on levels of interaction as well as costs of entry (crucial for thisexamination) -- the paper now turns to a background in existing research in this areaand how this paper is unique in providing analysis that has not been conductedpreviously.

7

Chapter 3. Literature Review
Though scholarship exists that is tangentially related to the intersection of new
media and voting behavior, the rapid pace at which the field is evolving and therecency of these changes result in a dearth of literature directly related to the topic.
The lack of scholarship -- especially quantitatively based analyses of new media andpolitics -- means that this paper is uniquely positioned to contribute new and heretofore
undiscovered analysis to the discourse.
Following an election where the popular rhetoric indicated a strong positive
impact of new media on the 2008 Presidential election, both the timing andsignificance of the issue warrant an analysis of the phenomenon. Crucially what is
missing in the debate over new media’s effect is firm evidence either in support of or
refuting claims as to its efficacy. Through a regression model which controls for
demographic variables -- including age, income, race, gender and education -- thispaper provides the first quantitative measures of how new media consumption patterns
in comparison with those of old media affect voting behavior. The results of this study
help inform a burgeoning field at the intersection of technology, media and politics
which thus far is in great need of contributions.
Despite the void in scholarly work around which this paper contributes,
existing papers do help to inform a study of media consumption and voting behavior,

8especially centered around two key poles. The first is the way in which new media ischanging society as a whole -- fundamental shifts in the way in which everything frommarketing to education is being altered as a result of the proliferation of new forms of
media. Grounding the exploration of new media’s impact on society broadly helps
provide a context for the stage in which to study its affect on electoral politics. The
second area of scholarship examines the way in which political entities are utilizing
technology and new forms of media to promote their ideologies and galvanize support.
As a result, these studies do not directly treat the electoral impact of new media onvoting behavior; they do, however, trace the dramatic shift in focus among disparate
political groups towards applying new technologies towards politics broadly. Tracing
scholarship centered around these two respective academic areas provides a staging
ground for the analysis of media consumption on voting behavior to occur.
One of the classic texts addressing the shift in communication technologies tocomputer mediated communication (CMC) is “The Virtual Community” by Howard
Rheingold. Even in 1993 when the book was published, Rheingold recognized thefundamental changes taking place in how we communicate -- just as other,revolutionary technologies had before: “new media attract colonies of enthusiasts
because CMC enables people to do things with each other in new ways, and to do

9altogether new kinds of things— just as telegraphs, telephones, and televisions did.”8
Nye (2006) writes on questions to be considered when analyzing the way technology isconceptualized within a society, and focuses on the social construction of forms of
media: “mass communication is not inherently democratic or hegemonic,” he argues,“its social construction can go either way.”9Benkler (2006) details the way in which the shift from an industrial-based to an
information-based economy fundamentally alters not just economics, but political andcultural institutions as well. He provides, ultimately, a very positive view on how thiseconomic shift -- where a single person and their networked computer become themost important node in an economic network -- affects society. He closes his book in
arguing that through embracing new technological communications, “We have an
opportunity to change the way we create and exchange information, knowledge, andculture. By doing so, we can make the twenty- first century one that offers...greater
democracy...and human connection.”10
In just a few years, blogs have been transformed from revolutionary to asocially accepted and even commonplace new media model. In an analysis of the way
in which blogs affected the 2004 election, Drezner and Farrell (2004) claim that
8

Rheingold, Howard. The Virtual Community Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. New York: The
MIT P, 2000.
9
Nye, David E. Technology matters questions to live with. Cambridge, MA: MIT P, 2006. P150
10
Benkler, Yochai. Wealth of networks how social production transforms markets and freedom. New
Haven: Yale UP, 2006., P473

10

“Compared to other actors in domestic politics – specialized interest groups, politicalaction committees, government bureaucrats, and the mass media – blogs do not appear
to be either very powerful or very visible.”11 The reach and scope of blogs, of course,
has drastically increased since that article was published, with popular blog databasetechnorati claiming in its “state of the blogosphere” report that as of 2008 there wereover 112 million blogs, and that 175,000 new blogs were created daily.12
A main theme in the proliferation of new media is how a reliance upon newtechnology for information alters the interactions that take place outside of computer
mediated communication. Nie and Erbing (2000) led a quantitative study of how
increasing internet use affected other aspects of American life. Especially pertinent are
their findings in relation to media consumption, where they found that for each
additional hour spent on the internet, there was a reduction in up to 65% in time spentusing “traditional” media.13 They found, however, that the decrease was stronger intelevision viewing than in newspaper reading.14

The findings of Nie and Erbring,

however, were not uncontroversial. A number of scholars, including Amitai Etzioni
took issue with some of the conclusions drawn in the Nie and Erbring study, notably
11

Drezner, D. and Farrell, H. , 2004-09-02 "The Power and Politics of Blogs"
http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p60900_index.html
12Theirer, Adam. "How many blogs are out there?" How Many Blogs are Out There? The Technology
Liberation Front, 6 May 2008. Web. 08 Feb. 2010. <http://techliberation.com/2008/05/06/need-helphow-many-blogs-are-there-out-there/>.
13
Defined in the paper as television and print media.
14
Nie, Norman, and Lutz Erbing. "Internet and Society." Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study ofSociety (2000). P6

11

that using the internet led to greater isolation and withdrawal from community. In his
response to Nie and Erbring, Etzioni (2000) argues that the data do not support Nie andErbring’s claims. For example while some rely upon “virtual” communities for
information and support, these online communities can be just as vibrant and important
as in-person communities. He closes, “The internet, like other new technologies,changes our lives, and not all for the better. However, claims that it increases oursocial isolation are wholly unsupported, especially by this study.”15
A number of scholars and historians, have written on the way in which forms of
media have revolutionized society -- most notably the printing press. Notable works
include Einstein (1979)16 McLuhan (1980)17 and Ronfeldt (1996).18 Many scholars on
new media and the internet and society have built upon the work of these scholars in
explaining societal change as a result of the printing press and have drawn analogies totoday’s changing information and media landscape. Hauben (1995), for instance,
explains “The Net speeds [these relationships] as the conversation is brought from the15

Amitai Etzioni "Debating the Societal Effects of the Internet: Connecting with the World," Public
Perspective, Vol. 11, No. 3 (May/June 2000), pp. 42-43.
16
Eisenstein, Elizabeth L. “Printing press as an agent of change communications and culturaltransformations in early modern Europe.” Cambridge [Eng.]: Cambridge UP, 1979. Print.
17
Marshall, McLuhan,. Gutenberg galaxy the making of tyopographic man. [Toronto]: University ofToronto, 1980. Print.
18
David Ronfeldt, "Tribes, Institutions, Markets, Networks: A Framework About Societal Evolution,"
RAND, P-7967 (1996).

12

print shop into a Netizen's home.”19 In a piece summarizing the arguments connecting
the printing press and the internet and new media, Dewar (1998) argues “...the Internet
era is very similar in important areas to the printing press era, and, because the printingpress had broad and profound effects on its age we should expect similarly broad andprofound effects from the information age.”20This review of academic scholarship now turns to the way in which new media
both impacts and has been affected by politics in America. 2004 marked the point inacademic scholarship in which political scientists began to pay more attention to the“blogosphere” and its influence on politics. This timing, of course, is related both toHoward Dean’s 2004 Presidential campaign which ambitiously used online networking
and fundraising, as well as the rise of “internet-mediated organizations” like DailyKosand MoveOn.org.21 Other academics, including Adamic and Glance (2005) used theupswing in interest among blogs in 2004 to look at the organization and characteristicsof the political blogosphere during the 2004 Presidential elections. In comparing “Alist” political blogs, the authors in their study found that there was a stark difference inthe online behavior of conservative and liberal blogs, with the former being more
19

Hauben, Michael. "The Expanding Commonwealth of Learning: Printing and the Net." Columbia
University, 15 Oct. 1995. Web. 4 Nov. 2009.
20
Dewar, James. "The Information Age and the Printing Press: Looking Backward to See Ahead."
Logos vol.9, issue 4, 1998. Web. 01 Nov. 2009.
21
Karpf, Dave. "All the Dogs that Didn't Bark: Understanding hte Dearth of Online Conservative
Infrastructure." 2009. TS. Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions, Brown
University, Providence.

13

likely to link to other like-minded sites, and a lack of bipartisan online communication
among both sides.22 Perlmutter (2008) looks at the rise of blogs, but cutting against
what many argue as the promise of them, claims that blogs “…are not that powerful bytraditional political measures: while bloggers can offer cogent and convincing
arguments and bring before their readers information not readily available elsewhere,
they have no financial, moral, social, or cultural leverage to compel readers to engage
in any particular political behavior.”23 He does, in the end, however, concede thatblogs do succeed in enriching politics and improving democracy.
Shirky (2008) shows the power of new media to collect and mobilize politicalsupport through new media. He takes a broader look than does Perlmutter, analyzing
not just blogs, but also other “Web 2.0” tools including wikis and Twitter, showing
how politically-minded groups can be compelled to action far more effectively, andpersuasively than in an “old-media” world.24
Scholarship since 2004 has extended beyond blogs to examining theintersection of other forms of new media with politics. In studying the effect ofYouTube on the 2008 Senate elections, Klotz (2009) found, “[t]he evidence does not
22

Adamic, Lada and Natalie Glance. 2005. “The Political Blogosphere and the 2004 US Election:
Divided They Blog.” Presented at the Conference on Knowledge Discovery in Data. Retrieved
November 3, 2009. http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=1134271.1134277
23
Perlmutter, David D. Blogwars The New Political Battleground. New York: Oxford UP, USA, 2008.
Print.
24
Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. New York:
Penguin HC, The, 2008. Print.

14

support the theory that democratized production, editing, and distribution of video
content is markedly changing the formats and producers of political content.”25 Thismeans that despite the explosion of user-generated content that was shared online
thanks to the rise of new-media, the underlying distribution mechanisms did notchange. Whereas there were many more videos being produced, those that were themost salient continued to be those produced by the campaigns themselves, rather thanweb-savvy citizens.
Finally, in the study closest to this one, authors Williams and Gulati (2008)
examine the specific impact of Facebook on the primary and caucus results in New
Hampshire and Iowa respectively, in the lead-up to the 2008 Presidential election.
They find that, “Facebook played a role in the early 2008 nomination contests. [Theirstudy] offers some initial empirical confirmation that social networking sites indeed
have potential to transform campaigns and the electoral process.”26 In tempering theiroptimistic outlook on Facebook’s ability to transform elections, they note that the roleof Facebook and similar sites is still evolving. “In 2006 only small numbers ofCongressional candidates were experimenting with them in rudimentary ways; in 2008

25

Klotz, Robert. 2009. “The Sidetracked 2008 Senate Campaign.” Paper presented at Youtube and the2008 Election Conference, Amherst, MA. April 17, 2009. Retrieved fromhttp://youtubeandthe2008election.jitp2.net/paperhome/rklotz
26
Williams, Christine and Girish Gulati, 2008. “The Political Impact of Facebook: Evidence from the2006 Midterm Elections and the 2008 Nomination Contest,” Politics and Technology Review, Volume
1, Number 1, Pps 11-24.

15

all the presidential candidates are employing them, a few extensively and with specificstrategic objectives in mind.”27 Thus, they conclude that further analysis is warranted.
Building on this academic literature, as well as the call for further analysis, thispaper now turns to examining how Facebook – as well as other forms of new media –impacted the 2008 Presidential election.

27

Williams, Christine and Girish Gulati, 2008. “The Political Impact of Facebook: Evidence from the2006 Midterm Elections and the 2008 Nomination Contest,” Politics and Technology Review, Volume
1, Number 1, Pps 11-24

16Chapter 4. Theoretical Model
This paper seeks to explain voting behavior as a function of patterns of media
consumption, utilizing regression analysis.
The dependent variable used is one which measures whether or not someone
voted in the 2008 Presidential election. It takes the form of an indicator variable, witha value of “1” if someone voted, and “0” if someone did not vote in the election. Thisvariable was chosen as the best proxy for real-world engagement in the politicalprocess. Certainly people as a result of new media could be more interested in, or evenengaged with campaigns and candidates, but this paper seeks to measure real-world
outcomes of media consumption, and thus voting behavior serves as a good tool toassess this involvement. As citizens, the most fundamental act in a democracy isvoting, and therefore using voting behavior as the dependent variable is the most direct
way of quantifying new media’s impact on elections.
The model’s independent variables include controls for various demographic
characteristics. The model controls for age -- which has been shown to be positively
correlated with voting behavior, and is predicted to be negatively correlated with new
media consumption. The model also controls for education -- breaking down one’s
education into those that did not complete high school, those that received a highschool diploma but no more education, those that attended some college, and those that17

received a college degree or higher. Additional controls include gender, income andrace.
The model then includes variables that measure crucial aspects of how one
consumes media, such that voting behavior is modeled as a function of various media
habits and activities. These media variables are broken down into four that represent
old media as well three that represent new media. A first set of indicator variables areincluded to explain the source from which one receives most of their election-related
news. These variables are broken down into those that say they receive most of theirnews from television, from newspapers, from radio or from the internet. Thesevariables, coded as a “1” if someone receives most of their news from a given source,and “0” if not, provide the best proxy for one being a heavy consumer of old media.
Having used four variables to model the consumption of old media, the model
then includes three dummy variables that measure ways in which people may consume
new media28, including:·

Whether or not one used Twitter to discuss the election;·

Whether or not one started a political group on an online social
network;

28

New and old media consumption are not mutually exclusive; for example, a person may indicate
television as their primary news source but also engage with candidates on Facebook. The model,
however, controls for this occurrence.

18·whether or not one signed up as a “friend” of a candidate on a social
networking site.

Because the dependent variable is a dummy variable, the model takes the formof a probit equation, showing how different variables affect the likelihood of one
voting or not. The model, broadly, therefore looks like:
Probability (voting) = f (G, Y, e)This model shows the probability of voting as a function of different variables
including demographic control variables (G), variables modeling media consumption
patterns (Y), and an error term (e). By including the demographic control variables,
this allows the model to show the specific effect of media consumption -- which are theindependent variables over which cizens have control -- on voting behavior.
The paper’s thesis is that the consumption of both new media and old media inthe 2008 Presidential election have a significant effect on a person's likelihood toengage in the political process by voting. Examining the coefficients on the media
variables will show what impact a specific type of media has on either increasing or
decreasing the likelihood of a person voting.
If, for example, the coefficient on becoming a “friend” of a candidate through asocial network were both positive and statistically significant, this would show that,holding all other variables constant, engaging in new media in this manner makes one

19

more likely to vote. Conversely, if the model were to show statistically significant andpositive coefficients on the old media variables, but statistically insignificant, or
negative coefficients on new media variables, this would show that it is, in fact, oldmedia that still explains most of one’s voting behavior, and that new media is relatively
insignificant in affecting one’s likelihood of voting.

20

Chapter 5. Data and Descriptive Statistics
The data come from a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Internetand American Life Project. Pew defines the project as “a nonprofit, nonpartisan ‘fact
tank’ that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America andthe world...(and) studies the social impact of the internet.”29
The survey took place following the November, 2008 elections, with Pew staff
conducting interviews via telephone from November 20 through December 4, 2008.
The sample size is very large for a telephone survey with a total of 2,254 adults age 18
or over included in the results. The combination of Pew’s reputation as a non-biased
producer of research, its stated margin of error on the survey of 2%, and its robust
sample size result in a data set from which conclusions can be reasonably drawn.
There exist a couple of concerns about the data; however, none of themsignificantly affect the results or implications drawn. The first concern is that the
sample population skews older in age; age has been included, however, as a control
variable limiting the significance of this. Secondly, a relatively small number of
respondents used Twitter for information in the 2008 election. However, given thesample size of 2,254 the number of Twitter users is not unexpected in relation to thenumber of television viewers and newspaper readers. A third concern is that as a result29

Pew Center. "Project History | Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project." Pew
Research Center's Internet & American Life Project. Web. 14 Feb. 2010.
<http://www.pewinternet.org/Static-Pages/About-Us/Project-History.aspx>.

21

of the limits of the data set, some conceptualizations of new media are not accountedfor. An example of this is the website my.BarackObama.com which was created by
the campaign as a way to bring together Obama supporters. While this study cannot
conclude anything about such a campaign-driven social network, the focus remains on
the most popular commercial social networking sites that are most representative of the
new media landscape. Finally, a higher proportion of respondents to the survey (85%)
voted than did the general population. This may suggest that the respondents to thesurvey are more engaged in the political process and perhaps more aware of thepolitical media landscape than the average citizen. This remains a minor concern,
however, as it is an expected result that those that did vote would be more likely toparticipate in such a survey. Further research could include a more representative
sample.

22

Figure 1: Descriptive Statistics
Variable

Mean/Count

Age
Education
White*
Male*
IncomeMostnewstv*
mostnewsnewspaper*
Mostnewsradio*
Mostnewsinternet*
Campaigntwitter*
SNcandidatefriend*
SNgroup*

4.280654
2.834685
1,791
1,063
6.11535
1,536
245
153
245
22
49
66

Std. Dev.
1.545693.9957841----2.885291---------------*Note: For indicator variables, this column reports the number of observations that
equal one.
Figure 2: Variable Descriptions and Values
Value
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

Age
18-24
25-34
35-44
45-54
55-64
65+

EducationLess than HS Grad
HS GradSome College
College Grad +Income<$10k$10-19K$20-29K$30-39K$40-49K$50-74K$75-99K$100-149K$150K+

23

Chapter 6. Results
To examine the affect of consumption of old media and new media on
likelihood of voting, I utilized the following probit model:
Voted = β0 + β1Age + β2Education + β3Race + β4Male +β5Income
β6MostnewsTV +β7MostnewsNewspaper +β8MostnewsRadio+β9MostnewsInternet + β10Campaigntwitter + β11SNcandidatefriend +β12SNgroup

The results of this model can be seen in figure 3 below.
Figure 3:
Variable

Age
Education
White
Male
IncomeMostnewstv
mostnewsnewspaper
mostnewsradio
mostnewsinternet
campaigntwitter
SNcandidatefriend
SNgroupCoeffici Robust
entStandard
Error
0.1688 0.0238
0.3695 0.3889-0.0922 0.0893-0.0981 0.0708
0.031 0.0129
0.673 0.169
0.6153 0.1961
0.7737 0.2162
0.7952 0.2033-0.2327 0.3754
0.5442 0.3246
0.6934 0.2901

T Score

7.1
9.5
-1.03
-1.39
2.4
3.98
3.14
3.58
3.91
-0.62
1.68
2.39

Key:
* = significant at alpha =.10** = significant at alpha =.05*** = significant at alpha = .01

24

Marginal Standard T score
Effects
Error(dF/dx)0.03360.00477.1
0.07370.00749.72

0.00240.0024

2.58

The model is robust, with an r-squared of .1165 which is reasonable for crosssectional data. The model has an LR Chi Squared value of 207.26, and a Wald Chi
Squared test score of 166.7, showing that it is a significant and robust regression. This
paper now examines each variable of interest, its significance, and its relation to thepaper's thesis.

Control Variables
Age: Holding all other variables constant, we find a coefficient on age of .1688,with a standard error of .0238. This results in a t-score of 6.48 which is strongly
significant at alpha = .01. This shows that age has a significant effect in explaining
voting behavior such that a one-unit increase in age -- moving from one age-bracket toanother -- is associated with a 16.88% increase in likelihood of voting. The marginal
effects of age on voting is .0336, showing that its instantaneous rate of change ispositive, such that the older a person is, the greater the likelihood that they will vote.
This is the expected result, as both academic literature30 as well as popularrhetoric suggests that older people are more likely to visit the polling stations than areyounger people. While there are plenty of explanations for this -- from more politicalclout, to membership organizations such as AARP -- the reasons for this behvaior lie
outside the scope of this paper. Of major import to the paper, however, is that in30

See, e.g. Strate, John M., and Charles J. Parrish. "Life Span Civic Development and Voting
Participation." He American Political Science Review 83.2 (1989): 443-64. June 1989. Web.
<http://www.jstor.org/pss/1962399>.

25

including age as a variable it controls for differing patterns of media consumption thatare likely strongly correlated with age. While the millenial generation are "digital
natives" -- growing up with and being adept at using new technologies -- older
Americans, such as the Baby Boomer generation are "digital migrants," being forced toadapt to new technologies which they have managed without for decades. As a result,younger Americans are likely more comfortable with consuming new media, whileolder Americans -- as evidenced by demographics on viewership on evening news
programs -- tend to consume old media. As a result, this model takes into account age
as a control variable, and, as such, allows for differences in media consumption to beunaffected by date of birth.
Education: Holiding all other variables constant, we find a coefficient on
education of .3695, with a standard error of .0383. This results in a t-score of 9.67
which is strongly significant at alpha = .01. This shows that education has a significant
effect in explaining voting behavior such that a one unit increase in education (forexample the effect of being a college graduate versus a high school graduate), holding
all other variables constant results in a 37% increase in a person’s likelihood of voting.
The marginal effect of education on voting is .073, showing a positive relationshipbetween education and voting.

26

This is the expected result, as we suppose that the more education someone hasreceived the more likely they are to vote. There are numerous causal factors for this -greater education may lead to a greater understanding of politics broadly and theimportance of voting specifically, for example. It is important to include levels of
education received in the regression model as it controls for any differential in media
consumption patterns associated with education.
Race/Ethnicity: Holding all other variables constant, we find a coefficient on
being white of -.0922, with a standard error of .0893. This results in a t-score of -1.03,
which is not significant at alpha = .10. This means that I fail to reject the hypothesisthat race/ethnicity has no significant effect on on voting behavior.
The variable race/ethnicity is an indicator variable, with a value of 1 if theperson is listed as White, and a value of 0 for any other race/ethnicity. That the t-scoreof the coefficient is so close to zero tells us that a person’s race/ethnicity has no
significant explanatory power. Including the race/ethnicity variable, however, is
important as it allows for any media-consumption patterns that are highly correlatedwith race to be controlled for in the regression.
Male: Holding all other variables constant, we find a coefficient on being maleof -.0981 with a standard error of .0707. This results in a t-score of -1.39, which is not27

significant at the alpha = .10 level. This means that I fail to reject the hypothesis thatgender has no significant effect on voting behavior.
The variable Male is an indicator variable, with a value of 1 if the person islisted as a male, and a value of 0 if they are female. That the t-score is negative is no
surprise -- as literature suggests that women are more likely to vote than men. What is,perhaps, surprising, though, is that it is not statistically significant in this model.
Income: Holding all other variables constant, we find a coefficient on incomeof .0310, with a standard error of .01294. This results in a t-score of 2.40, which issignificant at the alpha = .05 level. With a marginal effects coefficient of .006, thisvariable shows that income has a statistically significant effect in explaining voting
behavior such that an increase in income results in a greater likelihood of voting.
This is the expected result as there are many causal reasons for those withhigher incomes being more likely to vote. One simple, but robust, explanation is thatthose with higher incomes have the luxury of making the time in their schedule to voteon a Tuesday workday -- whether through flexible work hours, power at theirworkplace, availability of childcare, or other factors -- while those with lower income - as a result of fixed work schedules, a dependency on transportation, or working
multiple jobs -- are less likely to engage at the ballot-box. Including income as a28

variable of interest in the model also allows for correlations between income andconsumption of different types of media to be controlled for.

Media Consumption Variables
This paper finds that, contrary to the popular rhetoric of the 2008 election being
one decided by Facebook, in reality old media still completely dominates new media
when it comes to enrolling people in action at the ballot box. The model shows that all“old media” variables are statistically significant in converting non-voters to voters,
while the effect of new media on voting behavior is either not significant or
explainable through other non-media-consumption means. This paper shows throughquantitative analysis that old media convinces people to vote whereas new media fails
to do so.
This model includes multiple media-consumption variables to reflect a diverse
media landscape facing voters in the 2008 election. Included are four variables that areconsidered “old media” and three variables that are considered “new media.” Thedefining factor between what makes a media source old versus new is the cost of entry.
Whereas advertising on television or in print is extremely costly, participating in newforms of media -- such as creating a Facebook profile for a candidate, or establishing a
Twitter account for the campaign -- cost virtually nothing. This model, then, examines
the four main sources of political news -- television, newspaper, radio, and Internet29

(considered broadly) -- all of which are dependent on advertising for revenue and a“one-to-many” top-down broadcast model. The model also includes “new media”
variables that reflect common ways in which citizens interact with politicians andcampaigns in the social media space.31 This paper now examines the seven media
consumption variables, explaining their effect on voting behavior.

Old Media Variables
MostNewsTV: This variable is an indicator variable for whether or not
someone indicated that they received most of their news about the 2008 election fromtelevision sources. 1,536 respondents in the survey indicated that television was theirprimary source for election news. Holding all other variables constant, we find acoefficient of .6730, with a standard error of .1690. This results in a t-score of 3.98,
which is significant at the alpha = .01 level. This robust result states that holding allother variables in the model constant, consuming most of your election news fromtelevision results in a 67.2% increase in your likelihood of voting.
This result shows that television is statistically as well as practically significant
in explaining people’s likelihood of voting. While some may argue that television is a31

In addition to these three selected new media variables, over thirty different regressions were run withdiffering “new media” variables -- including commenting on political blogs, broadcasting one’s voting
behavior on facebook, and watching campaign videos online. Through all of these variations, the effect(or lack thereof) of new media on explaining voting likelihood remained consistent. Thus, the new
media variables included in the final model provide a consistent summary of the findings of many more,
related, new media variables.

30

passive form of entertainment, this result shows that relying on television for amajority of news and information related to the 2008 campaign explains a significant
amount in a person heading out to vote. For politicians, the results are clear: television
coverage still matters -- and in fact it matters quite a lot in elections.
MostNewsNewspaper: This variable is an indicator variable for whether or not
someone indicated that they received most of their news about the 2008 election from(non-online) newspaper sources. 245 respondents in the survey indicated thatnewspapers were their primary source for election news. Holding all other variables
constant, we find a coefficient of .6153, with a standard error of .1961. This results ina t-score of 3.14, which is significant at the alpha = .01 level. This robust result statesthat holding all other variables in the model constant, a person consuming most of theirelection news from television results in 61.5% increase in her likelihood of voting.
This result, again, shows a statistically and practically significant impact in
explaining a person’s likelihood of voting. It is especially interesting in today’s age
where much of the rhetoric suggests a waning in the importance and sustainability of
traditional newspapers. That those people who get a majority of their election
information from newspapers, holding all other variables constant, are 61.5% more
likely to head to the ballot-box shows that newspapers remain a media fixture ofimportance to campaigns and voters.

31

MostNewsRadio: This variable is an indicator variable for whether or not
someone indicated that they received most of their news about the 2008 election fromtraditional radio sources. 153 respondents in the survey indicated that radio was theirprimary source for election news. Holding all other variables constant, we find acoefficient of .7737, with a standard error of .2162. This results in a t-score of 3.58,
which is significant at the alpha = .01 level. This robust result states that holding allother variables in the model constant, a person consuming most of their election news
from radio results in 77.3% increase in his likelihood of voting.
Like the other traditional “old media” sources television and newspaper, radio
consumption of news also has a statistically significant effect in explaining a person’s
likelihood of voting. These results are especially interesting given the competition thattraditional radio is currently facing from multiple sources including premium
subscription satellite radio like XM-Serius; online and personalized radio sources suchas Pandora and Last.fm; and iPods and personal music players -- complete with
podcasts and other audio -- all of which, one would think, dilute the traditional radio
market. This result, however, shows that despite a rhetorical trend towards other audio
sources and away from traditional radio, candidates and political campaigns must stillengage with the radio as a key media source, as those who depend on it for electoral
information are quite likely to vote.

32

MostNewsInternet: This variable is an indicator variable for whether or not
someone indicated that they received most of their news about the 2008 election fromonline news sources. 245 respondents in the survey indicated that the internet was
their primary source for election news. Holding all other variables constant, we find acoefficient of .7953, with a standard error of .2033. This results in a t-score of 3.91,
which is significant at the alpha = .01 level. This robust result states that holding allother variables in the model constant, a person consuming most of their election news
from the internet results in 79.5% increase in their likelihood of voting.
Though some may consider receiving political information on the internet to bea form of “new media,” it is not considered such in this paper. By 2008 the internet in
American life had become ubiquitous enough to be a part of most households and mostdaily-lives. Further, merely consuming news on the internet -- whether through text,
audio or video -- does not, in-and-of-itself, fundamentally differ from consuming text
from a newspaper, audio from the radio, or video from the television. Reading
USAToday.com, for example, is more similar than dissimilar to reading the physical
USAToday paper, and therefore is treated as such in this paper. Further the barriers toentry to many internet sources through the cost of advertising are more similar to
traditional “old media” than to “new media.” In contrast, the new media variables

33

included in this model are distinct both in altering the paradigm for interaction between
campaigns and potential voters as well as for their cost structure.
What is highly significant, though, is that someone consuming most of theirnews on the internet goes a long way in explaining their likelihood of voting.

New Media Variables
CampaignTwitter: This variable is an indicator variable for whether or not
someone indicated that they used “Twitter to post (their) thoughts or experiences
related to the (2008 Presidential) campaign.” There are 22 respondents to the surveythat indicated they used Twitter in such a manner. Holding all other variables constant,
we find a coefficient of -.2327, with a standard error of .3754. This results in a t-scoreof -.062, which is not significant at the alpha = .10 level. This means I fail to reject the
hypothesis that using Twitter does not have an affect on a person’s voting behavior.
Thus, I conclude that Twitter does not have significant explanatory powers on thedependent variable of voting.
This result is the first strike against the popular rhetoric that the 2008 election
was the “election decided by Twitter.” The story composed around Twitter as a
campaign tool makes a lot of sense in theory: by reducing the barriers to entry forengaging with candidates and -- at least suppositionally -- creates the possibility for abetter two-way communication between candidates and possible voters. Both Barack
34

Obama and John McCain’s campaigns maintained active presences on Twitter, with
Obama’s account, for a significant period of time, leading all users in the total numberof followers.
Despite this rhetoric, however, we see that using Twitter, in reality, isinsignificant in explaining voting behavior. That we cannot conclude any affect -either positive or negative -- on using Twitter in campaigns shows that in this case therhetoric does not accurately reflect the reality.
SocialNetworkFriend: This variable is an indicator variable for whether or not
someone indicated that they used “signed up as a ‘friend’ of any candidates on a social
networking site” in the 2008 election. There are 49 respondents to the survey who
indicated friending a candidate on a social network. Holding all other variables
constant, we find a coefficient of .5442, with a standard error of .3246. This results ina t-score of 1.68, which is not significant at the alpha = .10 level. This means I fail toreject the hypothesis that friending a candidate does not have an affect on a person’s
voting behavior. Thus, I conclude that engaging with candidates on Facebook does nothave significant explanatory powers on the dependent variable of voting.
This result serves as the second strike against the rhetoric of the power of new
media in the 2008 elections and the widespread notion that the Presidential election35was the “Facebook election.”32 Befriending a candidate on Facebook is the best proxyavailable for engaging with a candidate through social media. The barriers to entry forthe campaign are virtually zero -- it costs no money to join Facebook -- and potential
voters friending a candidate have a non-existent marginal cost in adding an additional“friend.” While the term might be misleading, “friending” a candidate allows voters toreceive information and updates directly from the candidate in real-time, andunmediated by “old media.” Though friending candidates became an extremely
popular way of engaging with politicians and campaigns (Barack Obama’s Facebook
page currently has over 7.3 million followers33), the quantitative data show that it is nota statistically significant causal factor in explaining voting behavior. This result stands
in stark contrast with old media variables which all are statistically significant in
explaining the same behavior.
SocialNetworkGroup: This variable is an indicator variable for whether or not
someone indicated that they used “Started a political group, or group supporting a
cause on a social networking site” in the 2008 election. There are 66 respondents tothe survey who indicated starting such a group on a social network. Holding all othervariables constant, we find a coefficient of .6934, with a standard error of .2901. This
32

Rawlinson, Linnie. "Will the 2008 USA election be won on Facebook? - CNN.com." Will the 2008
election be won on Facebook? CNN.com. Web. 03 Feb. 2010.
<http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/05/01/election.facebook/>.
33"Barack Obama | Facebook." Barack Obama's Facebook Profile. Web. 03 Feb. 2010.
<http://www.facebook.com/barackobama>.

36

results in a t-score of 2.39, which is significant at the alpha = .05 level. This
statistically significant result means that starting a political group on a social
networking site, holding all other variables constant, is associated with a 69.3%
increase in the likelihood of that person voting.
This is the first, and only, statistically significant result of all of the new media
variables considered in this study. The data show that there is a positive relationshipbetween creating a relevant group on a social networking site and the likelihood ofvoting; however, this is not an effect directly applicable to the power of new media. If
someone is passionate and engaged enough to be creating a group pertinent to theelection, this is almost certainly a person that is already passionate and engaged
enough in the political process to vote regardless of this new media behavior. In
creating such a group, a person is declaring an allegiance for, and working towards thegoal of electing their candidate of choice. It therefore goes without saying that aperson displaying this level of commitment would almost assuredly also participate in
the process of voting. Thus, while it is, indeed, a statistically significant result for anominally new media variable, upon further reflection this variable and result do notsuggest the power of new media to engage voters. Rather, it reflects a new way foralready engaged voters to participate in the political process -- though it does not

37

fundamentally alter the paradigm of new media being far less encouraging of voting
than old media is.

Results Summary
This model clearly shows that the rhetoric that surrounded the 2008 election is
not reflected in the reality of the data. While all four “old media” variables,
representing the source from which people received most of their election news had astatistically significant impact in explaining voting behavior, the same cannot be said
for the new media variables. Despite commentary to the contrary that suggests that
Facebook, Twitter and other forms of new media were crucial in the 2008 election, thismodel shows that neither engaging politically on Twitter nor following a candidate on
Facebook are significant. While creating an election-related group on a social
networking site has a significant and positive effect on one’s likelihood of voting, thisis probably a function of external factors rather than directly attributable to new media
itself.
For decades traditional media like television and radio were the dominantsource of political information for Americans during elections. With the rise of
Howard Dean’s 2004 Democratic primary campaign which aggressively utilized
online-networking for information and fundraising, the focus of political candidates
began to shift slightly towards new media. In the four years following, both the38rhetoric around, and campaign adoption of new media strategies exploded. Coinciding
with a rise in the everyday use of new media -- as of early 2010, Facebook reports
having over 400 million users worldwide, half of whom log on daily34 -- has been a
new concentration on how campaigns can utilize new media to garner votes.
The 2008 Presidential election especially accumulated lofty rhetoric as it wasoften referred to as the “Twitter election,” and Barack Obama’s victory called “onedecided by Facebook.”35 Despite these claims, due to a dearth in scholarship in how
new media influences American elections, little was known, quantitatively, about new
media’s true impact in comparison with the established old media powers. This paper,
then, sought out to examine the links between media consumption patterns and voting
behavior to ascertain what role, if any, new media truly plays in American elections.
Based on the quantitative analysis above, it is clear that in converting non-voters tovoters, old media remains dominant.

34

Facebook. "Statistics | Facebook." Facebook Statistics. 2010. Web. 13 Feb. 2010.
<http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics>.
35
Fraser, Matthew. "Barack Obama and the Facebook Election." US News & World Report. 19 Nov.
2008. Web. 13 Feb. 2010. <http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2008/11/19/barack-obama-and-thefacebook-election.html>.

39

Chapter 7. Policy Implications and Conclusion
Through an analysis of the 2008 Presidential election, this paper models
various politically-related media behaviors and actions to see which ones are salient
predictors of voting behavior among citizens. By creating and analyzing a regression
model examining the 2008 Presidential elections, the results were clear: old media
remains dominant in getting people to vote, while new media’s role is shown to berelatively insignificant.
These results -- showing that the tangible reality of new media’s role does notmatch the lofty rhetoric -- have far-reaching implications. From a political strategy
perspective, it shows that despite grandiloquent claims and hopes, campaigns remain
wise to continue strengthening their focus on “old media” rather than shifting to a newmedia-centric strategy. While new media may have influenced people to vote for one
candidate rather than another, it failed to have a statistically significant impact ingetting a person to vote who -- in the absence of the media -- would not have done so.
From a policy perspective, these results show that expensive old media dominates
cheap and free new media in elections, and therefore substantiates calls for campaign
finance reform.
This thesis provides a unique opportunity to eschew the typical politicizedrhetoric of campaign finance reform and see, from an unbiased, analytical level, how

40media consumption patterns influence voting behavior. The implications of this study
are clear: if it is the case that new media -- characterized by extremely low barriers toentry -- have statistically significant explanatory power with regards to bringing people
to the ballot box, then an argument can be made that as a result of this new paradigm
that limits on campaign spending are quaint. Conversely, if it is shown that theexpensive old media players such as television and radio remain far more powerfulthan new media sources of political information, this provides evidence for the needfor campaign finance laws to introduce more competition and thus more efficiency into
elections.36
Not only has this paper shown that expensive old media dominates the muchcheaper new media in electoral results, this finding comes at a time when spending on
old media is growing exponentially. In the 2004 Presidential election, the Bush and
Kerry campaigns combined to spend over $600 Million on television and radio
advertisements -- more than triple the figures similarly spent in 2000.37 In the 2008
Presidential election, Barack Obama and John McCain combined to spend over $1

36This is assuming that campaign finance laws are both effective in their stated purpose and properly
enforced. Such analysis, however, lies outside the scope of this paper.
37
Associated Press."Ad spending in presidential race triples that of 2000." Minnesota Public Radio
News. 1 Nov. 2004. Web. 13 Feb. 2010.
<http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2004/11/01_ap_adspending/>.

41

Billion dollars38 on their campaigns in a year when a total of $5.3 billion was spent on
all American elections that year combined.39
To be sure the Obama campaign utilized new media aggressively, to which
many have attributed his victory. However, while the campaign did use free new
media, it also had the benefit of hundreds of millions of dollars to spend: a prerequisite
for participating in old media. This shows that while new media is used by campaigns,
it alone does not allow entry into the political market which remains dominated by the
big-money candidates. While the hope exists that a candidate could rely upon
inexpensive new-media to engage new voters, this study has shown that it is old media-- and not new media -- that converts non-voters to voters. If new media could, byitself, convince people to vote it would allow low-cost entry into an election; however,as this paper shows, it does not do so.
These two factors in elections -- the rise in overall spending, and the dominanceof expensive old media over free new media -- combine to accentuate the need for
campaign finance reform in the United States. The implementation of campaign
finance legislation placing limits on the total spending by political campaigns has thepotential to reduce the unbalanced influence that money now has on the electoral
process. By reducing the leverage of money in campaigns -- and thus increasing both
38

Note: this figure includes all spending, not just that on media.
Cummings, Jeanne. "2008 campaign costliest in U.S. history." Politico, 5 Nov. 2008. Web. 13 Feb.
2010. <http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15283.html>.

39

42

the diversity of candidates and the competition for elected positions -- the opportunity
for better and more representative governance emerges.
Campaign spending is far higher in the United States than in similar nations,stifling the competition through unduly high barriers of entry. For example, theObama campaign alone spent more money to win just the Democratic nomination than
did all Canadian campaigns combined in their 2008 national elections.40 With suchhigh monetary stakes -- which are increasing exponentially -- it becomes increasingly
difficult for a diversity of opinions and beliefs to be included in the marketplace ofideas of our electoral system. This paper recognizes the hope that new media holds forleveling the playing field; whereas television spots can cost millions of dollars each, a
Facebook profile can be created for virtually no cost, videos can be uploaded toYouTube essentially for free, and creating a Twitter account takes just a couple ofminutes and zero dollars. If new media could have significant effects on voting
behavior, the barriers to entry for a candidate would be significant lower. This would
result in a field of candidates more reflective of the diversity of the United States andwould allow a true marketplace of ideas to exist.
However, having shown the relative failure of new media respective to oldmedia in encouraging voting, the promise of a more diverse and competitive electoral

40

Terry, Ashley. "2008 Canadian election." Global News. Web. 13 Feb. 2010.
<http://election.globaltv.com/indepth/usvscanada.aspx>.

43system through new and social media is delayed if not damaged. As a result, this paper
shows that candidates will continue to rely upon the expensive and access-limiting old
media rather than competitive and affordable new media. This reality, in combination
with the United States’ strict two-party system and major corporate donors results in areality in which the barriers to entry in major campaigns are prohibitively high -resulting in a system where money has a disproportionate influence. Because thispaper shows that old media remains crucial to candidates’ electoral hopes, by extension
the importance of having the money to engage in television, radio and newspapers
becomes a significant factor of a candidate’s viability. Thus, candidates withtremendous potential but small wallets struggle to compete with those that have thefunds to utilize old media aggressively.
For a government to represent the will of the governed, it is imperative thatthose representing the people are chosen competitively. By instituting campaign
finance laws, Economics guides us in understanding the market-based mechanisms thatwould occur. By lowering the barriers to entry into elections, more individuals will beable to participate. Through greater participation in the market, greater competition
occurs, which promotes greater efficiency. By making the defining characteristic of acandidate the quality of their ideas and leadership, as judged through this more robust

44marketplace of ideas -- rather than by financial resources -- a more representative
government results.
Campaign finance reform holds the potential to limit the influence of money in
American politics. By reducing the financial barriers of entry -- which as this paper
shows are prohibitively high as a result of the importance of expensive old media -greater competition will be introduced for elected positions. Through greater
competition, a marketplace of ideas is strengthened, resulting in a more efficient -- andultimately more representative -- government.
Though much has been written historically about the intersection of media andpolitics, up until now virtually no scholarship had addressed how new media influences
political campaigns. Inherent in Barack Obama’s Presidential victory were the hopesof many that through his campaign’s use of new media, a more egalitarian anddemocratic form of politics had come to America. However, as this paper has shown,despite lofty claims to the contrary, old media remains far more salient than new media
in engaging voters at least in terms of convincing people to vote at all.
This paper finds that, holding all other variables constant, people receiving
most of their political and election-related news from television, newspapers, radio, or
the internet resulted in a strong increase in their likelihood of voting. Conversely,
engaging and interacting with candidates through new media venues -- including45

Facebook and Twitter -- failed to elicit any statistically significant increase in aperson’s likelihood of voting.
Despite the rhetoric surrounding the 2008 Presidential election suggesting thata candidate could tweet and Facebook friend their way to victory, the results of thisstudy are clear: despite lofty claims to the contrary, in political campaigns old media
still reign supreme.

46

References
Adamic, Lada and Natalie Glance. 2005. “The Political Blogosphere and the 2004 US
Election: Divided They Blog.” Presented at the Conference on Knowledge
Discovery in Data. Retrieved November 3, 2009.
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=1134271.1134277
Associated Press."Ad spending in presidential race triples that of 2000." Minnesota
Public Radio News. 1 Nov. 2004. Web. 13 Feb. 2010.
<http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2004/11/01_ap_adspending/>.
Benkler, Yochai. Wealth of networks how social production transforms markets andfreedom. New Haven: Yale UP, 2006. Print.
Cerf, Vint, Barry Leiner, and David Clark. "A Brief History of the Internet." ACM
SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review 39.5 (2009): 22-31. Web.
<http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1629613>.
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. ___ (2010)
Cummings, Jeanne. "2008 campaign costliest in U.S. history." Politico, 5 Nov. 2008.
Web. 13 Feb. 2010. <http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15283.html>.
Dewar, James. "The Information Age and the Printing Press: Looking Backward to See
Ahead." Logos vol.9, issue 4, 1998. Web. 01 Nov. 2009.

47

Drezner, D. and Farrell, H. , 2004-09-02 "The Power and Politics of Blogs" retrieved
from: http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p60900_index.html
Eisenstein, Elizabeth L. Printing press as an agent of change communications andcultural transformations in early modern Europe. Cambridge [Eng.]:
Cambridge UP, 1979. Print.
Facebook. "Statistics | Facebook." Facebook Statistics. 2010. Web. 13 Feb. 2010.
<http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics>.
Fraser, Matthew. "Barack Obama and the Facebook Election." US News & World
Report. 19 Nov. 2008. Web. 13 Feb. 2010.
<http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2008/11/19/barack-obama-and-thefacebook-election.html>.
Grossman, Lev. "Blogs Have Their Day." Time Magazine. 19 Dec. 2004. Web.
<http://www.time.com/subscriber/personoftheyear/2004/poyblogger.html>.
Hauben, Michael. "The Expanding Commonwealth of Learning: Printing and the Net."
Columbia University, 15 Oct. 1995. Web. 4 Nov. 2009.
Jarvis, Jeff. What Would Google Do? London, U.K: Harper Collins, 2009. Print.
Karpf, Dave. "All the Dogs that Didn't Bark: Understanding hte Dearth of Online
Conservative Infrastructure." 2009. TS. Taubman Center for Public Policy andAmerican Institutions, Brown University, Providence.

48

Klotz, Robert. 2009. “The Sidetracked 2008 Senate Campaign.” Paper presented at
Youtube and the 2008 Election Conference, Amherst, MA. April 17, 2009.
Retrieved from http://youtubeandthe2008election.jitp2.net/paperhome/rklotz
Liptak, Adam. "Supreme Court Blocks Ban on Corporate Political Spending NYTimes.com." The New York Times. N.p., 21 Jan. 2010. Web. 8 Feb. 2010.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/us/politics/22scotus.html>.
Marshall, McLuhan,. Gutenberg galaxy the making of tyopographic man. [Toronto]:
University of Toronto, 1980. Print.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "New Media and the Elections." MIT. 19 Oct.
2000. Web. 16 Feb. 2010. <http://web.mit.edu/commforum/forums/elections.html>
Nie, Norman, and Lutz Erbing. "Internet and Society." Stanford Institute for the
Quantitative Study of Society (2000). Print.
Nye, David E. Technology matters questions to live with. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2006.
Print.
Perlmutter, David D. Blogwars The New Political Battleground. New York: Oxford
UP, USA, 2008. Print.

49

Pew Center for Internet and American Life. Post Election Voter Engagement. 30 Dec.
2008. Raw data. Http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2008/PostElection-VoterEngagement.aspx, Washington, DC.
Pew Center. "Project History | Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life
Project." Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project. Web. 14
Feb. 2010. <http://www.pewinternet.org/Static-Pages/About-Us/ProjectHistory.aspx>.
Rheingold, Howard. Smart mobs the next social revolution. Cambridge, MA: Perseus
Pub., 2002. Print.
Rheingold, Howard. The Virtual Community Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier.
New York: The MIT, 2000. Print.
Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody The Power of Organizing Without
Organizations. New York: Penguin HC, The, 2008. Print.
Strate, John M., and Charles J. Parrish. "Life Span Civic Development and Voting
Participation." He American Political Science Review 83.2 (1989): 443-64.
June 1989. Web. <http://www.jstor.org/pss/1962399>.
Technorati, “The State of the Live Web, April 2007.” 05 Apr. 2007.
http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000493.html

50

Terry, Ashley. "2008 Canadian election." Global News. Web. 13 Feb. 2010.
<http://election.globaltv.com/indepth/usvscanada.aspx
Theirer, Adam. "How many blogs are out there?" How Many Blogs are Out There?
The Technology Liberation Front, 6 May 2008. Web. 08 Feb. 2010.
<http://techliberation.com/2008/05/06/need-help-how-many-blogs-are-thereout-there/>.
US News & World Report. Barack Obama and the Facebook Election." US News &World Report. 19 Nov. 2008. Web. 16 Feb. 2010.
<http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/2008/11/19/barack-obama-and-thefacebook-election.html>.
Williams, Christine and Girish Gulati, 2008. “The Political Impact of Facebook:
Evidence from the 2006 Midterm Elections and the 2008 Nomination Contest,”
Politics and Technology Review, Volume 1, Number 1, Pps 11-24.

51