IT is true to say that technology presents us with a new limitless world where one’s ability is relatively improved with the insurgence of advanced gadgets, machinery and software. Such was the case of the last American presidential election which ended with Barack Obama in the oval office. His is the classic story of how creativity, determination and a dash of technology became the ultimate recipe for success.
Barack Obama uses iPhone in presidential campaign. (Source: Google images)On the 2nd of October 2008, the then Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign launched an iPhone application that turned the vaunted device into a political recruiting tool. (Cnet.com, 2009). The marriage between Obama and iPhone, Apple’s smartphone that combines an iPod, a tablet PC, digital camera and a cellular phone (Searchmobilecomputing.com, 2009), created the application we came to know as iObama.
The marriagr: Obama + iPhone = iObama. (Source: Leonard & Google Images)The main functions of iObama range from organizing events, getting the latest news on Obama to browsing images, videos and propaganda from the Obama campaign. Needless to say, the application is a success as its creation took into consideration the audience, purpose and context of the presidential race. In BBC News (2008), Obama was quoted as saying that "This tool is designed to help you become more directly involved in our campaign to change the country."
Setting out in his presidential campaign, Obama had first indentified his target audience, group of people who will most likely vote for him His audience were divided into three groups, namely the young voters, the non-white and also the women in America. He then tailor-made his campaigning after these people for maximum support and he is successful in doing so as Schiffers (2008) states that majority of his targeted audience had voted for him as mentioned by the National Election Pool.
According to Bear (2006) everything has its own function whether it is to sell, to inform, to educate, to impress and to entertain. Hence, the purpose of Obama’s use of the iPhone and its appliocation is to SEL his ideology and political promises as a future president. He also chooses to keep his audience INFORMed by constantly updating them with his campaign status. On top of that, he is EDUCATING his targeted audience or American as a whole about having strategic changes that will benefit the country. The final purpose of the iObama is that it features info-entertainment function such as downloadable wallpaper, video and photos from the campaign.
Situational context as defined by Paltridge (2000) is a combonation of field, tenor and mode. With the use of iObama, Obama is now communicating with his supporters in a less formal tone that aids in fostering good rapport with his voters. The field or subject of the merging of a political campaign and the iPhone happened amidst the backdrop of the 2008 Presidential Campaign whereas the interaction between Obama and his voters is known as the tenor and the mode used in this context is short concise digital updates coupled with audiovisual and multimedia aids in the iPhone.
For progress and change. (Source: Google images)References
BBC News 2008, Obama uses iPhone to win support, viewed on 9th June 2009, < http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7649753.stm>.
Bear,JH 2006, Your Guide to Desktop Publishing, online, retrieved 10th June 2009. From < http://desktoppub.about.com/mbiopage.htm >.
Cnet.com 2009, Obama releases iPhone recruiting, campaign tool, viewed on 10th June 2009, < http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10056519-38.html>.
Paltridge,B 2000, ‘Genre Analysis’, Making Sense of Discourse Analysis, Antipodean Educational Enterprise, Gold Coast
Searchmobilecomputing.com 2009, What is iPhone?, viewed on 10th June 2009, < http://searchmobilecomputing.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid40_gci1238379,00.html>.
Schiffers,S 2008, Who Voted for Obama, online, retrieved on 15th June 2009, from < http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/us_elections_2008/7709852.stm >.
No comments:
Post a Comment