What was your favorite moment of 2012? So much happens each year that we often forget to take time to reflect in the moment.
As we embark upon 2013, Jeremiah Warren has pulled together a short video on YouTube looking back on some of the past year’s highlights including events in the Middle East, London Olympics, 2012 presidential election, NASA, Disney’s purchase of Lucasfilms, the Pope’s first tweet, Kate Middleton’s pregnancy, the Mayans and several memorial tweets remembering those we lost.
This year, we will all witness and likely participate in the 2012 U.S. presidential election in an unprecedented manner thanks to social media and rapidly emerging technology. Not only are the campaigns and mainstream media using these tools, but voters will also have unique opportunities that will help inform their vote on Election Day come November. Here are five ways that digital media is changing the modern political environment in the U.S.:
As delegates make their way to Tampa, Florida next week for the 2012 Republican National Convention, staff and volunteers are working diligently to ensure that all Americans can participate — whether in person or remotely. Thanks to advanced technology through partnerships with AT&T, Microsoft and Google along with social media use among participants and viewers alike, they can!
According to a recent video released by convention organizers as part of their “Convention Insider” series, the goal is to make this the “most open and accessible event of its kind.”
Almost anyone who has been near a radio this summer has certainly heard Carly Rae Jepsen’s catchy tune, “Call Me Maybe.” In June, our family embarked upon a massive roadtrip that took us from Washington, DC to Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, West Virginia and back. We must’ve heard this song at least two dozen times while in the car, usually with a “Turn it up!” request from my girls in the backseat.
As it turns out, we weren’t the only ones. The Harvard University baseball team had a little fun with the song, as well. Apparently, on a roadtrip of their own back in May 2012, they sang and danced to the tune from the backseat of their van and uploaded a video of it to YouTube. Then, the Internet took notice. At the time of this post, their video had over 14.6 million views. But it didn’t end there.
About 100 or so gathered on the roof of our building to get a glimpse of the Space Shuttle Discovery.
It was slated to fly over the Washington, DC monuments for a swansong journey before officially retiring to a new home at the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Center in Dulles, VA.
It was supposed to arrive between 10 AM and 11 AM ET but it was early. Word traveled faster than the shuttle.
How did we know? Why, Twitter, of course. Thanks, @Smithsonian! (HT @shkon)
Discovery just flew over us at Dulles. Now headed in to fly over DC. Get out there and #spottheshuttle
So, we headed up to the roof and anxiously attempted to figure out just exactly which direction to look in anticipation of its arrival. Hashtags started to trend on Twitter such as #SpottheShuttle and #WelcomeDiscovery.
The Edelman Global Public Affairs team has released findings from the 2011 Capital Staffers Index, an annual global study that analyzes top trends in global public affairs and communications.
This year’s expanded report is the third annual survey based on interviews with over 500 senior staffers (legislative directors and above) from capital cities in 11 different countries around the world including Washington DC, Brussels, London, Beijing, Ottawa, Mexico City, Paris, Berlin, New Delhi, Buenos Aires and Brasilia.
Although traditional methods public affairs components are still valuable, social media channels have experienced a meteoric rise in their ability to shape and influence policy worldwide over the past year.
As the 2012 presidential campaign continues to heat up, Election Day 2011 is just around the corner. In less than twelve days, Americans will head to the polls on Tuesday, November 8th to cast votes for various state and local candidates. And, we’ll be almost exactly one year away from voting to determine whether President Obama will serve a second term.
This morning, I had the pleasure of speaking at the Holmes Report’s ThinkTank Live event here in Washington, DC where I discussed the evolving media landscape and the role of social media in shaping politics and public policy. In preparation, I got to thinking about how social media was impacting the election process this early in the race. Between the Romney-Perry video battles and the buzz around Herman Cain’s “smoking” ad featuring his chief of staff Mark Block, it was a perfect week to perform a little deeper analysis.
We discussed the new Kindle, Apple price fixing allegations, President Obama’s “We the People” petition via WhiteHouse.gov, government and social media, crowdsourcing, ID spoofing and much more.
Over the past couple weeks, the White House has been all about Twitter.
Of course, President Obama’s team isn’t exactly new to Twitter — and neither is the White House. His official @whitehouse Twitter account has been in use since April 2009 and his @BarackObama campaign handle launched in March 2007. Today, the campaign’s Twitter feed seems to be in full re-election mode with almost 9 million followers and the #Obama2012 staff working to keep it updated with both campaign and official White House news.
So, what’s new? The most recent activity of note is that the president himself is beginning to tweet.
This year, we will all witness and likely participate in the 2012 U.S. presidential election in an unprecedented manner thanks to social media and rapidly emerging technology. Not only are the campaigns and mainstream media using these tools, but voters will also have unique opportunities that will help inform their vote on Election Day come November. Here are five ways that digital media is changing the modern political environment in the U.S.:
This year’s expanded report is the third annual survey based on interviews with over 500 senior staffers (legislative directors and above) from capital cities in 11 different countries around the world including Washington DC, Brussels, London, Beijing, Ottawa, Mexico City, Paris, Berlin, New Delhi, Buenos Aires and Brasilia. 
