When I covered Barack Obama’s campaign trail, I was struck by the incredible political activity and energy on the web. The targeted e-mails, the fundraising, the co-ordinated news releases and the way in which Facebook and other social networks came into play created a level of participation we had never seen before.
It seemed that in our own elections, all three main parties would follow, adopting their own social media strategies. But intriguingly, the web has not been the master of this election. While Mr Obama appeared the master of the new medium in America, here the new medium appeared more the master of the politicians, frequently running irreverent circles around them — via sites for spoofing posters, witty Twitter asides or viral parodies on YouTube.
The campaign has shown that television, whose power I mistakenly expected to have waned, is as great as ever. So far, the rare campaign “moments” have all been captured by television: from the debates, to the egg attack on David Cameron and the closed white door of Gillian Duffy’s Rochdale home.
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