Other New Literacies Used

In addition to the new literacy tools I have already mentioned, Obama's Campaign used a few other new literacies, including texting and emailing. Although the campaign email is not a new development for the 2008 election cycle, the use of texting to update potential voters is.

Texting:
Obama's campaign made use of massive texts sent out to millions of people at a time to make major announcements and to remind people to vote. Perhaps the announcement that received the most coverage was Obama's pick for Vice President, which he sent out to his supporters on the texting lists at 3:00am on a Friday morning. This message was sent out to over 2.9 million people, which is the largest single text yet carried out. The campaign strategy was to reward loyal supporters by giving them the information before anyone else could receive it. However, "The value of the message goes far beyond the 26 words and 2.9 million recipients," the Nielsen release read. "Here, Obama branded himself as cutting edge, inflated the already enormous press attention paid to his VP pick and further established a list of supporters’ most coveted form of contact: their cellphone numbers." This shift was an important one, and utilized a very direct way to contact supporters and reinforce their vote. It also reminded voters to show up on election day, mobilizing people to vote early and on the regular election day.

Emailing:
Obama's campaign also made use of emailing. This was not a new development for campaigns, as they had used email routinely for a few elections now. However, the emails were still significant, because they included links to donate money and to go to Barack Obama's website and find out more information on the campaign. These emails were reminders that the campaign was in session, and were a cost efficient way for the campaign to communicate with the voters to reinforce their support for Obama.