Following up on the panel at AEJMC about the Internet in the 2008 political season, Garrett M. Graff explains the way Barack Obama’s text message alert about his vice presidential selection is actually a means to a larger end.

But announcing Mr. Obama’s running mate by text message has little to do with proclaiming the selection and everything to do with getting out the vote on Election Day in November. The move should add thousands — and more likely tens or hundreds of thousands — of cellphone numbers to what is already one of the most detailed political databases ever created.

A study conducted during the 2006 elections showed that text-message reminders helped increase turnout among new voters by four percentage points, at a cost of only $1.56 per vote — much cheaper than the $20 or $30 per vote that the offline work of door-to-door canvassing or phone banking costs.

It’s a shrewd way to get new contacts into a campaign database, and I suspect it’s something that more candidates will be doing in future elections. It will be interesting to see whether such TXT GOTV methods actually increase turnout by 4 percent or more. That’s a huge number in a presidential campaign, and if it’s effective, might be Obama’s tipping point.

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This morning, I sat in a panel about the role of the Internet in the 2008 campaign. Here are my notes from the panel:

Aaron Smith – Pew Internet researcher: Two trends – 73 percent of americans are internet users. this campaign, we’re seeing record-setting levels of interest in the campaign. 40 percent of all adults were going online to get information about politics. 20 percent were going online every day to get political information. Online video – 1/3 have watched online videos about politics – double in the past (13 percent). Primary, unfiltered campaign materials – 1/3 of internet users. web 2.0 is 10-15 percent of internet users. compared to 04-06, double or triple from small starting point. Social networking sites – first time we asked about sn sites. this year, 10 percent of all adults have gotten some sort of campaign or political information from social networking sites. 2/3 of 18-29 year olds have profiles – 1/2 of them have used those sites to get political information.

Mark Tremaine – UT-Austin: 2008 – what’s happened is a lot of top blogs have become group blogs. During the Democratic primaries, objective blogs didn’t succeed. Clinton/Obama split occurred on the liberal blogs, not strictly along gender lines.

Georgia Logothetis – Daily Kos – georgia10: The blogging medium has exploded within the last 5 years.
1. the interaction between blogs and the traditional media, and what effect will the blogs have on the fall election?
The type of people that blog are not elite, they’re not a specific class. It’s empowering, and that’s what the medium does. It’s empowering for the average american to go into a medium and say “I have a valid opinion about politics.”

(Blogs) operate as a fact-checker on the traditional media. Beauty of the blogging medium … when I post a blog post, when I cite to something, I have to hyperlink to my source. when someone writes an opinion piece, they don’t have to disclose to the reader their sources.

Context – blogging has exploded. citizen empowerment. along with empowerment comes a more rabble-rousing electorate. People become more informed. they are demanding more from their politicians.

Tom Johnson – Texas Tech: Social network sites have really played a major role, particularly with the Obama campaign. You tube is a two-edged sword for candidates. it allows them to present themselves unvarnished in the media. No real control over what gets posted. Any gaffe that they make gets on there. Social networks makes politics local. Supporters keep in contact with each other. Way to connect with young voters. To a certain degree, pollsters have underestimated the power (facebook) has.

Bill Adee – Chicago Tribune director of innovation: (Regarding the John Edwards affair story) One of the huge issues facing organizations like the Chicago Tribune. We would have gotten killed by our readers for (covering the story in October). By not doing so, we’re getting killed today. We get held to a standard that our own readers aren’t willing to hold themselves to. More than our business model, it’s also our journalism that’s putting us in a tough spot too – the standards we’re holding ourselves to.

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