Obama kondigde eerder dit jaar een banenplan aan om de Amerikaanse economie een boost te geven. Het plan bevatte diverse stimuleringsmaatregelen, als het bieden van overheidssubsidie voor bedrijven die oorlogsveteranen in dienst nemen die langer dan een jaar werkloos zijn. Investeren in de infrastructuur zodat bouwvakkers, die door de ingestorte huizenmarkt massaal werkloos zijn, weer aan de slag kunnen lijkt eveneens een no-brainer. Het makkelijkste punt is een belastingverlaging voor de midden- en onderklasse. De Republikeinen schoten dit banenplan echter onmiddellijk af. Deze plannen zouden betaald worden door een aantal mazen in de wet te sluiten waarmee de zeer rijke Amerikanen hun belastingplicht ontduiken. Deze rijke Amerikanen doneren veel geld aan de Republikeinen, die in ruil daarvoor voor hen opkomen. Republikeinen geven aan niet de “jobcreators” niet meer belasting te willen laten betalen. Of ze ook daadwerkelijk meer banen creëren is volgens diverse gerenommeerde onderzoekers en opiniemakers maar zeer de vraag. Dit verklaart echter maar deels waarom de plannen van Obama worden tegengehouden. De achterban van de Republikeinen bestaat vanzelfsprekend niet alleen uit rijke Amerikanen, maar vooral uit mensen die minder belasting willen betalen. Tegenstemmen bij een voorstel om de belasting te verlagen doen ze dan ook niet zomaar. Ze gaan er vanuit dat de kans dat Obama herkozen wordt, kleiner is als het slecht gaat met de economie. Een belastingverlaging zou de economie stimuleren, net als de andere plannen waar een groot gedeelte van afgevaardigden ook niet persé tegen is. Obama liet het er niet bij zitten en knipte zijn plannen in kleine deeltjes waardoor de Republikeinen bij elk deeltje tegen moesten stemmen, ook bij de belastingverlaging.

Het door de Republikeinen gedomineerde Huis van Afgevaardigden, stemde dit weekend ook tegen het verlengen van een belastingvoordeel. Obama kwam met stoom uit zijn voor de camera’s, om te vertellen dat er niet “gepokerd” kan worden om het presidentschap met als inzet belastinggeld van mensen die het niet kunnen missen. Het nieuwe media team begon onmiddellijk met een campagne die mensen opriep om te via Twitter en een speciale website te vertellen wat 40 dollar per maand minder inkomen voor hun betekent. Obama paste deze strategie al eerder toe, bijvoorbeeld bij het debat over immigratie. Volgens Philipps was dit echter een van de succesvollere acties.

Mashable analyseerde de 40.000 Tweets en concludeerde dat 47% vertelde wat je kunt doen met 40 dollar en 31% tweets over de belastingverlaging waren. 8% zei dat 40 dollar niet genoeg was. En 13% van de tweets waren negatief over Obama. Wat voornamelijk interessant is dat Obama een open frame heeft opgebouwd, waar iedereen zijn eigen dromen aan kan verbinden. Het is eigenlijk de klassieke “imagine truc” maar dan in een nieuw jasje. Echter die 40.000 tweets komen ook binnen bij de followers van deze personen. Voornamelijk dus positieve herhaling van dit frame, dat is iets waar de traditionele media, zelfs met hun hoge mate van herhaling niet aan kunnen tippen. Het is een moeilijk inzetbare tool, omdat de content genoeg emotie moet oproepen om een call to action te zijn. Dat lukte dus zelfs met heftige onderwerpen als immigratie nog niet. Dit onderwerp is echter nog toegankelijker, en ik verwacht dat in het hoog gepolariseerde politieke klimaat dat er nog velen pogingen zullen volgen in de 2012 campagne. Voor nu 1-0 voor Obama.

Meer info over framing staat in “Framing the Health Care Reform Debate”

Update: Uiteindelijk heeft het Huis van Afgevaardigden toch in moeten stemmen met de wet door de hoge druk van de publieke opinie. Obama wint zelfs iets aan terrein in de opiniepeilingen.

Abstract
After a widely applauded presidential campaign, enabled by grassroots and rhetoric, Barack Obama finds himself in a less comfortable position in the ongoing debate around the American health care reform. Linguist George Lakoff (2009a) argues that the decline of support on this issue is caused by an elaborate framing campaign of conservatives, and the lack of framing by the Obama administration. With the help of special software, I examined three spheres, the Web sphere, blogosphere and newssphere. This (limited) research mainly confirms Lakoff’s theories, but also show that Obama’s counter-frame is becoming more effective, which arguably led to mystification and misinformation (Castells, 2009).

You can find my paper here, or click on the read more button (I encountered some trouble with the layout in wordpress, there seems to be a big difference in some browsers)

Introduction
Barack Obama is widely credited for running one of the best-organized campaigns in the history of political campaigning. His campaign activated millions of voters who were actively engaged around a message of ‘hope’ and ‘change’. Nevertheless since his big victory and inauguration in January 20^th, 2009, according to opinion polls his ‘job approval’ decreased to under 50 percent. Especially in one of the most important topics of his campaign, health care reform, support for his plans decreased rapidly during this summer. “How is it possible that the same people who did so well in the campaign have done so badly on health care?” (Lakoff, 2009a).

Opinion polls[1] show that from February 2009 to approximately half June most Americans were in favor of Obama’s plan for health care reform. But since half June, support decreased to a declining majority. Next to the decline, is also a widespread misinformation about a broad spectrum of issues around health care reform[2].

Lakoff analyzed the problem very thoroughly on August 20^th, 2009, just after Obama’s speech. According to Lakoff one of the biggest problems is the lack of framing from the Obama administration in almost all of its communication around health care reform. “The answer is simple and unfortunate: The president put both the conceptual framing and the messaging for his health care plan in the hands of policy wonks. This led to twin disasters.” (Lakoff, 2009a). The first disaster is what Lakoff calls ‘The PolicyList Disaster’. Instead of a general plan, the plan is generally communicated as a set of reforms. Instead of a story about how health it is focussed on all the different parts. Secondly the Obama administration primarily focussed on facts in almost all their communication, this is what Lakoff calls, “The PolicySpeak Disaster” (ibid). The idea that people can consciously control their reasoning, and therefore will automatically draw the right conclusion based on facts, is debunked by neuroscientist Antonio Damasio as described in his book Descartes Error (2004). On the other hand the conservatives are very good organized and run a lively campaign (together with lobbyists) against health care reform very effectively.

Since the idea of framing became popular around 2004, it has also been criticized. Rahm Emanuel for instance said, that the Bush campaign didn’t win two campaigns only because they used the right words. And Jesse Walker wrote a cogent critique that shows how hard it is to understand how framing works (Jenkins, 2008). Walker is arguing that Lakoff fell in his own trap, being a linguist and come with linguistic solution to the problem (Walker, 2008). I also acknowledge that in the past presidents as Bill Clinton didn’t succeed, and the Obama administration is closer to health care reform than ever before, even without ‘public option’. The goal of this paper is to get a better understanding of framing, not on the Obama administration’s strategy to get health care reform pass both congress and the senate. The research question is; how does framing, by both conservatives as progressives (in this case the Obama administration) reflect on the Web sphere, blogosphere and (online) newssphere and therefore on society in the case of health care reform?

First I will introduce the basic theory of framing based on research of George Lakoff, Antonio Damasio and sociologist Manuel Castells.  Secondly I will analyse the extensive theory of Lakoff of August 20^th, 2009 on how the health care debate is framed. Lakoff also provides a list of terms he thinks are used by both sides, and gives a little theory per term how he thinks this will work out. I will translate this theory to my own research. In my method explanation I argue that researching the three Web spheres tell us something about the nature of framing, and the differences between spheres in the case of framing. With special software provided by Digital Methods Initiative this research is based on search queries in three different Google spheres; the Google Web Search, Google Blog Search and Google News. I researched how many times terms analysed by Lakoff are mentioned in those three spheres. Google’s search engines demarcated the three spheres for me.[3]

Theory of framing
In this chapter I will only briefly explain the basics of (political) framing, required to understand my research. For an extensive theory of framing I refer to Damasio (2003), Lakoff (2004, 2009a, 2009b, 2009c) and Castells (2007, 2009). Lakoff based himself on research done by linguistics, especially in the seventies[4], and recent to very recent neuroscientific research.[5] In their research there are three main aspects that are important for my research in this paper, which I will explain briefly.

First, as written in Damasio’s Descartes Error’ (originally from 1993), we, human beings, are not the rational ‘creatures’, we believe we are since the enlightenment (2003). In fact our brain cannot reason without emotion. Lakoff argues that framing is a natural phenomenon. Framing ensures the possibility of interpreting, and metaphors frame our understanding of the world. Damasio and Lakoff see the brains as physical connections (synapses) between billions of neurons. Those connections are made and strengthened by repetition. Basically there are two basic emotions by which the brain structure itself (via emotional pathways); epinephrine for ‘negative’ emotions and dopamine for ‘positive’ emotions (Damasio, 2003). Which leads to six basic emotions: fear, disgust, surprise, sadness, happiness and anger (Castells 2009). Lakoff describes six major errors in the brain; optimism bias, the fundamental attribution error, the illusion of control, reactive devaluation, risk aversion and the salient exemplar effect (Lakoff, 2009c). Framing therefore is making connections between parts of the brains mainly because of repetition, not only by words but also by images and especially stories. Stories are particular popular in politics, for instance the heroic stories of John McCain in Vietnam. Those stories are emotional narratives, making or strengthening connections in the brain (Lakoff 2009c).

Reagan (and later Bush) understood that despite most people didn’t share his view on almost all his issue’s; they were willing to vote for him. They run their campaigns on five principles;

1. Values
2. Clear communication
3. Authenticity
4. Trust
5. The possibility to easily identify with him

Where Kerry and Al Gore ran their campaign on issues.

Secondly, to overrule a frame is very hard and almost always done with the wrong method. Most of the time politicians try to negate the frame, and overrule them with hard facts. Debunking a frame by negating is according to Lakoff just repeating the frame (2009b; 2009c). Lakoff believes that the Republicans are much better in political framing, mostly because they use their think tanks to come up with powerful frames. They have spent over four billion dollars, to repeat their worldview via their media, spokespeople and institutions (2008). Therefore the conservatives actively try to make the frames, and the progressives are normally reactive, and therefore ‘confirm’ those frames unintended. [6]

Thirdly Lakoff (2009c) and Castells (2009) theorize bipartisan is very common (they don’t provide numbers). Because we live in the same society, it is very normal to have both frameworks in your brain. The so-called mutual inhibition takes place when one part of the brain inhibits the other. Therefore, most people are not completely conservative or progressive. For instance, they are for the biggest part conservative but on some values progressive, the moderates (Lakoff, 2009b).

A very good example of how framing is used in practice is the case of the “War on Terror”. According to Amelia Arsenault and Manuel Castells there is still a big misperception around the Iraq War “Iraqi Freedom”. Take for example the now infamous weapons of mass destruction. The Waxman Report reported that the Bush administration made 237 false or misleading statements. Former president George W. Bush admitted on television that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (Castells & Arsenault, 2006). Still even in November 2008, 37 percent of the Americans believe that “Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the U.S. invaded”. Only 52 percent thinks that this is not true.[7] Arsenault and Castells (2006) believe that this misperception is socially produced. “At the heart of this process of inducing misperceptions is the interplay between the political and communication establishments – in this particular case, between the Bush Administration and the mainstream media.” (Castells & Arsenault, 2006) (see also figure 1.). Castells concluded later; “In the process leading to the Iraq War, American citizens were submitted to the frames of the war on terror and patriotism” (2009: 186) (see also figure 2.). People tend to believe what they want to believe, they are not able to consciously step out of their frame. Again the frame is physical, and even to date the frame around “The War on Terror” is still very effective. As Lakoff analyzed (2009c) you cannot simply negate a frame, because you will be simply accused for being unpatriotic and naïve. It physically strengthens the frame and the synapses get stronger.[8]

Figure 1. “Social process of the production of misperceptions about the Iraq War.”(Castells & Arsenault 2006: 286).

Figure 2. Social production of mediated perceptions of the Iraq War. (Castells 2009)

Lakoff cofounded the progressive think-tank “Rockridge Institute”[9], which stopped at april 2008. Lakoff states that he achieved many goals; one of them is that the progressives now also know and adapt the theory of framing [10]. As I already briefly mentioned, Obama is applauded for using frames (unintended?), for instance the caring and empathy frame (2008).

Framing the Health Care Reform debate according to George Lakoff
The biggest flaw in the Obama’s administration’s mindset is that they believe they just have to tell the truth, according to Lakoff (2009c). The progressive say, ‘the truth is on our side’, let’s talk about the truth. That idea is fundamentally wrong according to Lakoff (ibid). You should tell the through, but the conservatives are not all lying on purpose, nor do you convince only with the truth. The first problem is that the administration communicates the policies separately (2009a). There is no real narrative, which covers it all. Therefore it is much easier to take down those points separately than to take down the plan as a whole. Legislators are lobbied to be against particular features, and it gets much easier to find the unfavorable plans (ibid).

Policy talk versus framed language.
Lakoff criticize important speeches by Obama and senior advisor David Axelrod for not mentioning ‘public option’ (a national-funded health care system) at all, at their speeches on August 16, 2009. We would later see that Obama strategically left public option out as an must have, and in December 2009 Nancy Pelosi states that public option will not be included in the final reform[11].

Nevertheless public option is the wrong term in the first place (Lakoff, 2009a). There are very well known stories about health care coverage, people who have to wait and insurance company’s are very inefficient. Instead the Obama administration communicates dry facts about costs and a policy list.  On the other hand the Republicans understand very well that health care reform debate is about morality, and use terms like ‘government take-over’ and ‘death-panels’. “Ask yourself which is more memorable: “Government takeover”, “socialized medicine” and “death panels” – or Axelrod’s 24 points?” (ibid).

Harris Polls in September 2009 show that a majority of 58 percent believe that President Obama’s plans would create a “government-run health care system”, and 22 percent is not sure.[12] In the Harris Polls of October 2009 numbers even increased, to 65 percent who believe in government takeover. The same poll under 2293 adults show that 37 percent believe that “the proposed reforms would create panels that would decide who should live and who should die”. Despite of the death panels 43 percent believe that “the system we have now is better than what the president is proposing”.[13]

My Method
Lakoff wrote this on August 20^th, 2009, and thinks that is not too late, to change the game. Since then Obama held a speech at congress and a hardened campaign for his health care reform. Since August a lot is said about health care reform, and I believe the Obama administration (especially in Obama’s speech for congress in September 2009 and speech in January 2010) did a little better than before. I will do a comparative media analysis in the Web sphere, the blogosphere (via Google Blogs) and the online newssphere (via Google News).

Digital research methods; researching Google or society through Google?
According to Hewson et al (2003), the Web offers many possibilities as a research tool. Observational studies can be done, without disturbing subjects, and limit bias. Internet research is generally cheaper, and it is much easier to get enormous datasets. Internet research also offers possibilities to research to special-interest populations and minority groups (ibid).

Richard Rogers argues that social research cannot only be empowered with the Web, but can also be done on the Web (Rogers 2009). In its early days, the Web was seen as a separate space. Ideas of hyperspace and later cyberspace demarcated a division between the real and the virtual (ibid). Internet research would tell to researchers more about the cyberspace (for instance embodied in the numerous user studies), but not about society. Rogers suggests the ‘inauguration’ of a new era in Internet research, where one could not just study the Web with the Web, but also society (ibid, 8). The Digital Method Initiative calls it online ‘groundedness’, which arguably happened around 2007 (Rogers, 2009). Earlier studies were focussed on the digital divide (Castells 2004), and recent studies show that still a part of the world is (partly) excluded from the Web. Although a fast increasing part of the world population do have access to the Internet, in one way or another, online censorship is still a problem. Nevertheless I don’t think there is reason to believe that this is the case United States. According to a recent study of Nielsen, The United States has 195 million active Web users.[14] The OpenNet Initiative reported some Internet filtering incidents, but the United States is not technically filtering their Internet.[15]

Rogers was inspired by a journalist research done by the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad in 2007 (2009). A journalist from NRC Handelsblad investigated the language of extremist right-wing groups, and used the Internet Archive [16] .The journalist compared the language of ‘regular’ right-wing groups and explored if the language was hardening over time.

“Thus the findings made about culture were grounded through an analysis of Web-sites. Most significantly, the online became the baseline against which one might judge a societal condition” (ibid, 9).

Researching the Web sphere?
This research is based on the same logics. With the help of tools offered by The Digital Methods Initiative, I investigate the Web sphere, newssphere and blogosphere to confirm or debunk Lakoff’s framing theory applied on the health care reform debate in the United States (2009a). The special software asks Google what kind of terms the different spheres adopt, in an automated process.

I argue, on the basis of research done by Hindman (2008) and Grimmelmann (2008/2009), that a Google query gives a good impression of the spheres, for two reasons. First, the web is vast; in 2008 Google had indexed a trillion unique pages.[17] It also lacks any kind of organized categorization (Grimmelman, 2008). Given the demise of the directories as the Google Directory (Rogers, 2008), it seems to be very hard to do well. According to Grimmelman, as a result “we rely on search engines’ rankings to make the Internet useful” (2008). When you search for information, you can go to websites you already know or find new sites. You can find new sites by links from the sites you already know, or use a search engine. It is very unlikely to find the information by ‘randomly’ typing addresses in your browser’s address-bar (ibid).

Search engines, especially in the Western World, are in most countries dominated by Google.[18] In the United States, according to Hitman, 71,57 percent of the searches is done through Google and 15,39 percent by Yahoo. Matthew Hindman did a comparative research on Yahoo and Google, using Hitman software (2008). The Hitman software combined data from multiple Internet Service Providers. The search engines (Yahoo and Google) shared 90 percent of their top 10 results in political queries and 4 of their top 5 (Hindman, 2008).

It is hard to say what percentage of incoming visitors comes directly from a search engine. For instance, a part of the visitors who directly came to a website, might have found that website through a search engine at the first time. For instance, the website of AbortionFacts.com was ranked first in Google and second in Yahoo. It got 80 percent of their visitors from search engines (Hindman, 2008).

The second reason why I believe Google can give a good reflection of the Web sphere lies in Google’s algorithm. Google ranks their search results through a system what they call PageRank. Google counts the number of inlinks (the number of sites that have a link to a particular site[19]). It also weights the inlinks by popularity, a link from the CNN homepage gives you more value than a link from a website with PageRank 1[20]. It remains uncertain how this is exactly in practice. Although the stakes are high, and there is much speculation and analysis[21], the exact Google recipe is still unknown, and even changes over time. Google is to some sense a black box, but it provides some information about how webmasters can improve their search ranking.[22] Overall, sites that are ranked higher in the search results also have more links to their site on average. Yahoo and Google use a different algorithm and methods for crawling the web, their top 10 results are nearly the same, although slightly in a different order (Hindman 2008). Sometimes the results are gamed (Grimmelmann, 2008/2009), but I believe this is not the case with “health care reform”. To sum up; you can get a good impression of the Web sphere by a search-query in Google.

Personalization, my Google sphere might be different from your Google sphere.
Google is constantly tweaking their results, which makes it sometimes harder to compare results. Since December 4^th 2009 Google started with personalizing their search engine results. Previously Google personalized only logged-in members with Google accounts. On the basis of a cookie (a little local file on the computer) Google connects you now with the databody they collected about your search preferences. Google use the word personalization for registered users and customized for ‘anonymous’ users. [23] However, it is possible to disable the customization. Google also tells you if and how they customized the search query.[24] . During this research I actively checked if Google personalized my results, and deleted my cookies before I checked one of the Google Spheres. Therefore, I believe my data is taken from the most neutral point of view possible. On the other hand, queries on “health care reform” returned by Google might be customized for other users. My Google spheres might be different from yours. For example if you regularly surf to the website of CNN.com, CNN might be favored over other news sources. Google is not totally clear how it will work in practice (and use rather vague terminology in their explanation). The customization started in the beginning of December, I never encountered any customization, and very little is said about it since. Therefore, I don’t think it is that influential jet.  Nevertheless it might be a challenge for future research with Google.

Pro-health care websites are dominant in the Web sphere
The research conducted by Hindman (2008) showed a substantial overlap between Google and Yahoo. According to Hindman, this reflects a winner-takes-all pattern (ibid.: 68). Hindman’s research confirms usability-research, as Steven Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think (2000). Although the web is very vast, and Google has indexed approximately 40.500.000 websites for the query “health care reform” [25], only a few users get past the first page (the first 10 results) (Hindman 2008). Therefore, arguably, there is a dark or hidden web, with sites that are only found by a very small percentage. Those sites have a very limited influence on a debate. When they get more attention, they almost automatically get higher search rankings.

Hindman concludes that many users find the same information. Search engines make it much easier to find smaller websites, but make it even easier for users to return to known sources (ibid). As a result some pages barely show up high the results. Hindman shows that Pareto’s power law applies in his results. According to the power law, it is the top 20 that is responsible for 80 percent of the market (ibid). To conclude, I argue that to get heard it is especially important to appear in the top 10 results. Eye tracking studies reveal that users pay the most attention to the triangle in the upper left, the so-called golden triangle (Krug, 2000). In a Google specific eye tracking study people paid the most attention to first 3 results. People spent most time looking at the golden triangle, and then scanned the page in a F-shape, with a quick glance at the advertisements on the right.[26]

Cross-spherical analysis
The aim of this research is explicitly not to map all the political activity online in the debate around health care reform, nor is it the purpose to make claims about the Obama administrations strategy. This research is particularly aimed at getting a better understanding of how framing works, in this case in the three different spheres. Although the aim is not to examine the spheres as such, I would like to briefly explain my understanding of those spheres to contextualize this research.

Arguably, the three spheres are connected, and constantly adapt each other’s logic. Media imitate other media (Bolter and Grusin, 1999). But they are also in the same space of fast number of growing information on the one hand, and decline of attention in the other hand. As Rogers puts it; “They compete for inclusion as well as prominence in all manner of information spaces
” (Rogers, 2004).

There are quite contradictory theories about the blogosphere, and it seems to be a matter of perspective. Henry Jenkins, a professor in fan studies, see bloggers as actively (and critically) engaged. They also have a quite prominent voice in debates (2006). Lovink is quite critical and claims that although a very small percentage seems to be really engaged, the majority of the blogosphere provides a nihilistic voice (2007).  The newssphere is a sphere that combines the established broadcasters with some online broadcasters. And is editorially conducted by Google in this case. But it is different from traditional media because it is not ranked by ‘authority’, but chronologically. According to Lovink, the blogosphere is parasitic on the newssphere and drains it; the blogosphere is not an addition or alternative to the newssphere (2007).

But the differences between the spheres are not just a matter of perspective. They are not just concurring spheres on the Web but in a larger media landscape as well. As Katherine Hayles puts it; “The temptation to think of text on screen as essentially identical to text on a printed page, simply because the words are the same, is all the more the seductive because the computer is the most successful simulation machine ever created. It is crucially important, however, to recognize that the computer can simulate so successfully only because it differs profoundly from print in its physical properties and dynamics processes” (Hayles, 2004: 71). The more the context shapes to the medium, the more successful it gets.

Ultimately, Rogers sees cross-spherical analysis as “a digital method for measuring and learning from the distances between sources in different spheres on the Web (2009).

The methodology of this research mainly follows the logic and steps defined by ‘The Digital Methods Initiative’[27].

1. Determine the basic query.
2. Let Google demarcate the three different spheres on the topic of “health care reform”.
3. Harvest the URL’s of the different spheres with the help of the Harvester
4. Determine the terms to research
5. Use the Google Scraper, Google News Scraper (in combination with the Google Scraper) and the Google Blog Scraper to scrape the blogs.
6. Analyse the results

Step1, “Health care reform”
Because Google search engines demarcate the spheres; the basic query is very important. When choosing the wrong (biased) entry-point, the research as a whole is biased. The basic query in my research is “health care reform” because it is simply most used by both parties. Obama later used the term “health insurance reform”[28], and conservatives more often speak of “health care reform bill”. Some speak of “health reform”, but they all use the term “health care reform”. Google trends show that “health care reform” is by queried the most[29] (see figure 3), and the most neutral term.

Figure 3. Google trends on different terms

Step 2. Demarcating the spheres.
Following Hindman’s research (2008), I conduct my research over the top 3, top 10 and top 30 results. What I found in my research is the fact that the results of a query in Google (in all the different spheres) are different almost everyday. The Web sphere of December 29^th, 2009 is a different sphere than the Web sphere of December 30^th, 2009. I will later return to this issue, but therefore I have chosen to use the first 50 results instead of the first 30 results. I noticed that especially the top 20 to top 50 results constantly change. When choosing for the top 50 results, Google will combine the results from the same website, and place the result directly under the first result, in two different ways. Therefore the exact number of the first 50 results will not always be 50 unique websites.

When querying Google for the “health care reform” I always used the following settings;

• Region: United States
• Language: English
• Results per page: 50
• Not logged in with a Google account
• I used the same computer with same ip address (a Dutch ip address)
• The browser was Safari
• Before I requested a query I always emptied my cookies and my browsing history.
• Google never reported it customized my results in any way.

To get a better understanding of how framing works, we first have to analyse what kind of websites frame the Web sphere. Categorizing the top 50 results will give a better understanding of what voice is dominant. I categorized the websites manually as news or non-news, and labelled the non-news issues with pro health care, anti health care or neutral. If there was no (clear) statement for or against health care reform I labelled them as neutral. For instance some of the websites were quite vague about their opinion. For instance, “The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops” claimed to be pro-health care plans of Obama, but they were against abortion funding. Despite the official health care reform website of The Whitehouse clearly writes that abortion will not be funded by the health care plans.

The query on “Health Care Reform” at November 9^th 2009 and November 13^th 2009, as I described above gave me very remarkable results. As we can see in the Appendix (1,2 and 3) twenty-seven out of fifty were non-news sites. Eleven of those were clearly positive towards the Health Care Reform, thirteen were unclear or neutral, only two of them were clearly anti and one website didn’t respond.

When we take a closer at the top 10 ranking, three of the results are pro Health Care Reform. Two websites are neutral; one of them is the international Wikipedia lemma of Health Care Reform. The other neutral website is “The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops” website. There is one clip on YouTube, against Health Care Reform, they are now the 9^th result, but they are rising. Four of the first ten results are news website, The New York times, CNN twice and CBS. I cannot mark them as pro or anti health care.

The GOP websites, GOP.gov and GOP.com are not in the top 50 results. GOP.gov was ranked at the 66^th place in the beginning of the week, and moved to the 88^th place in the end of the week. The GOP.com website is cannot be found in the top 500 at all. The websites of the Obama administration Healthreform.gov and Whitehouse.gov are ranked first and second. Also Fox.com is not present in the important top, although the second time I queried, the have a page on the 13^th place. I’m not sure what causes the low ranking of the GOP websites, pagerank 5[30] is clearly not high, but there are multiple other websites in the top 50 with pagerank 4. Also the number of inlinks is not that high; 51[31], but it is higher then other websites in the top 50.

Although I used the exact same query and search engine settings, I got different results with only five days between the queries. Most of the big changes are news-websites, but in the top 10 results there are some other differences as well. The Wikipedia lemma was boosted from the 7^th to the 4^th place, the Bishops also climbed two places and the anti Health Care Reform Movie on YouTube made it to the top 10.

Because geo-location is very important for advertisement targeting through Google’s AdWords[32], it is hard to say if there is much advertisement on Health Care Reform. I found only one advertisement, the website of The Financial Times (ft.com). Nevertheless I presume there is more advertisement on such a frequently used search-term. Google AdSense is a program that centralizes advertisements for smaller websites. It enables website-owners to get advertisements on their sites, and therefore income. Because it is centralized, it also enables advertisers to put their advertisements on a lot of different websites. NewsMax.com used Google AdSense to get their anti-Obama advertisement on websites that used terms around health care reform[33]. Further research is needed to see what is the result of advertisements like this.

How did the top 50 results evolve over time?
When we compare the research results from November 2009, to January 9^th 2009, we can see some differences. The top 10 basically show a same pattern, but it now boosts their own News search engine. Above the results, a link refers to Google News and shows the first three results of the news sphere. At the first place in the results, the official webpage of the Whitehouse dedicated to the issue is still on the first place. But we now find a link to the Yahoo News service dedicated to health care reform on the second place, with the first story right beneath. On the third place we find Wikipedia, first on the international version of “Health care reform” and than on the “Health care reform in the United States”-lemma. The top 50 is now more balanced, with 7 anti websites and 9 pro health care reform websites.

One way or another, the pro-Health care reform voice (more or less) dominates the Web sphere, at least they represent a big percentage of the first results, especially the top 3 and top 10. You would say that their language and terminology would be more dominant too. But as we will see in the cross spherical analysis this is not the entirely the case. Over time we can conclude that news websites are increasingly important. I will later return to how the results evolve from November 9^th, 2009 to January 9^th, 2010.

Step 3. Harvest the URL’s.
By putting the source code of Google results from the spheres, the Harvester[34], the software extracts all the links from the spheres. By excluding links from Google and YouTube, and double links it extracts only useful links. Still, the URL set is imperfect; I will address those problems later.

Step 4. Query design, defining the right keywords
To determine a solid list of framing terminology, I follow Lakoff’s logic. Lakoff defined a clear list of terms used by both, conservatives [35] [36] [37] [38] and progressives, the Obama administration [39] [40] [41] [42] . He also defined clear rules how the progressives should reframe or now counter frame their terminology, to shape public opinion especially with the ‘truth’ (Lakoff, 2009). Next to the terminology he elaborately explained, I analysed some important communication since Lakoff’s article from August 20^th, 2009. With special software[43] I triangulated the most important terms in their communication. With the help of Lakoff’s model I extracted additional terms manually from the most used terms in those communication. Together a list was conducted of 16 terms for both conservatives as the Obama administration.

Lakoff proposed to use a more engaging terminology (2009). The Obama administration should tell a very simple and powerful narrative, as he proposed;

Insurance company plans have failed to care for our people. They profit from denying care. Americans care about one another. An American plan is both the moral and practical alternative to provide care for our people.

The insurance companies are doing their worst, spreading lies in an attempt to maintain their profits and keep Americans from getting the care they so desperately need. You, our citizens, must be the heroes. Stand up, and speak up, for an American plan.

Insurance company plans have failed to care for our people. They profit from denying care. Americans care about one another. An American plan is both the moral and practical alternative to provide care for our people.

The insurance companies are doing their worst, spreading lies in an attempt to maintain their profits and keep Americans from getting the care they so desperately need. You, our citizens, must be the heroes. Stand up, and speak up, for an American plan. (ibid)

To sum up, according to Lakoff, Obama should focus on patriotism, and call the reform the American Plan, referring to the other plans, i.e. The Canadian Plan or Dutch Plan(ibid). It can be framed next to the care-frame Obama successfully rolled out during his 2008 campaign. He should also point directly at the “villains” (basically the insurance company’s with their lobbyists and conservatives that spread false information on purpose) Lakoff argues (2009). The terminology should come in a “common parlance” (ibid).

I conducted the following lists:

Obama administration:
“Reality check”
The Obama administration’s reality check website is aimed at “get the facts about the stability and security you get from health insurance reform”[44]. Lakoff argues that this won’t help the debate, because he doubts this will convince people (ibid). Nevertheless, who are these facts adopted by the spheres? It might not directly influence people, but it might indirectly influence them, by being an ‘official’ source. I can image journalist and bloggers use it.

“Public option”
According to Lakoff, public option is just boring language. “Yes it is public, and yes it is as option, but it does not fit to any frame (ibid).

The Obama Plan
Official websites of the Obama administration all use term The Obama Plan.

“Consumer protections”, “Insurance protections”,“Affordable coverage”, Uninsured
Secure, Healthier.
These words tap into the ‘care’ frame on the one hand, and on the urgency on the other hand. The words also more frequently used.

“Insurance company bureaucrats”, “Insurance company failure”, “Status Quo”, Lobbyists, Inefficient
As Lakoff argues, speak about the villains, tell people what goes wrong. Don’t only hint to it, but actually say it out loud.

“Donut Hole”
A fancy term for one of the major coverage gaps.

“Health insurance reform”
The official term of the reform by the Obama administration[45].

Conservatives:
“Death panels”
Although none of any bills for health care reform, included even a hint to death panels, Sarah Palin ‘is afraid’ that when the bill passes through the House and the Senate, government will decide who will life and die.[46] The Obama administration tried to clarify on this issue by negating it. As mentioned earlier 37 percent of the Americans believe ‘death panel story’.

Abortion, Rationing, Euthanasia, “Gun regulation”
This falls in the same category as the death panels. While the Obama administration repeatedly told that abortion funding, euthanasia and health care rationing are not a part of health care reform[47], according to a Harris poll, 25 percent thinks euthanasia will be promoted, and 41 percent believes health care will be rationed.[48] Gun owner lobbies actively lobby against health care reform, because they are afraid it will lead to gun regulation.

Obamacare
This seems to be an extension of “HillaryCare” a conservative name for the failed attempt of the Clinton administration to reform health care.

Pro-life
According to Lakoff, the conservatives understand very well that health care is a matter of life and death (ibid).

“Government takeover”, Socialized, Socialist, Communist
These are not just lies, but tap into the deeper conservative frame. This frame is build since the 1970’s, and deeply fears anything near socialism. I personally, think this also illustrates ideological differences from Obama who tries to link patriotism to caring. I used both the term socialist as socialized, which is used in multiple terms, for instance socialized medicine.

Hitler, Nazi
Glenn Beck linked Nazism and Hitler to Obama.[49] How does this resonate in the different spheres?

“The liberal elite”, “Big Brother”, “Extreme left-wing”
Are all used multiple times in speeches.

It is remarkable to see that some of the terminology proposed by Lakoff, is now actually used by the Obama administration. On the other hand, public option is now sacrificed, and the plan is reframed to health insurance reform instead of American plan. Although he still tends to use a fact-based terminology, he, arguably, also use a more engaging terminology. It is interesting to see differences if there is difference in the adaption of more fact-based terminology and more story-based terminology.

It also struck me that there is less overlap in terminology than in the conservative terminology. The administration uses different terms for the same issues; this is the opposite of the “common parlance” Lakoff was talking about. The Obama administration also provides multiple facts over the number of un- or under-insuranced. It not only makes it harder to research, but also to remember. When applying Lakoff’s theory about framing, the Obama administration did better, and even adopted some of the terms Lakoff proposes. The bottleneck according to Lakoff’s theory is inconsequent terminology and the lack of patriotic language. On the other hand you might argue that for Obama patriotism is caring in the first place.

Conservatives on the other hand are more supported by business logics. According to Lakoff, they got their tactics from marketing theorist and may not directly know about brain research and linguistics. The conservative message does not come directly from their leaders, partly because they don’t have real leaders at the time. The republicans, according to a study of Harris, see McCain as the most influential leader[50]. In fact, McCain even “admitted” that Obama is not a socialist. Again, negating a frame only makes it stronger, and is totally different from debunking it. And although Sarah Palin speaks of death panels, and Glenn Beck compares Obama with Hitler, most of the language came from what Lakoff calls, the five-twenty-sevens (2008). Therefore I enhanced the conservatives list provided by Lakoff only with a few terms.

Some terms are used by both ideologies. For instance, bankrupt, which is used by conservatives as nationwide bankrupt. Obama on the other hand, use it as ‘personal’ bankrupt. With this method it is problematic to contextualize, and therefore I can only use clearly defined terms.

Step 5. Scraping the spheres.
The Google Scraper is server sided software, developed by the Digital Methods Initiative. In fact it uses a feature of Google, and automates analysing its results. By Google typing a term and than “site:” the web address, for instance [Obama” site:whitehouse.gov] in Google, Google counts the number of hits on the website. By using a specific website and not only the domain address, for instance http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-to-a-Joint-Session-of-Congress-on-Health-Care/ you can search if a term is used. When you only define the domain, Google will search the whole domain. It is particularly important for the Web sphere and blogosphere to keep this in mind. The Google search engine (for the Web), seems to prefer domains over specific websites. I speculate this is mainly due to its algorithm, that is (partly) based on inlinks, and people seem to link to domain instead of specific sites. Google Blog Search has a simular problem, because the settings of some blog software, it sometimes links to the homepage of the blog. Because of its different design, Google News Search does not have this problem. Google cannot handle question marks; it breaks the url after it. Some software use question marks, especially Content Management Systems, which are quite popular for news sites, and also some blog software. This means that for instance ‘example.com?article=1232’ will search the whole domain for the requested term. Luckily the most up to date software often redirects via its htaccess-file, which solves this problem when done well. To sum-up, when using the Google Scraper (or Google Blog Scraper or News Scraper) you have to be aware of these issues while analysing the results.

Step 6. The results
The results are divided in three parts, first a sphere comparison, second a term analysis and third a time comparison.

Sphere comparison.
The Web sphere[51]

Issue cloud – issues for all sources (hosts, cumulative, retrieved by Google scraper)

“Reality check” (11) “Public option” (31) “The Obama Plan” (13) “Consumer protections” (12) “Insurance protections” (4) “affordable coverage” (17) “insurance company bureaucrats ” (5) “Uninsured” (36) “Secure” (17) “Healthier” (19) “Status Quo” (16) “Donut Hole” (10) “inefficient” (15) “insurance company failure” (1) “health insurance reform” (22) “lobbyists” (22) “Death panels” (14) “Obamacare” (16) “Pro-life” (9) “Government takeover” (14) “Abortion” (25) “Socialized” (17) “Socialist” (13) “Communist” (7) “Euthanasia” (11) “Big Brother” (6) “Hitler” (11) “Nazi” (9) “The liberal elite” (3) “Extreme left-wing” (2) “Gun regulation” (2) “rationing” (16)
The blogosphere[52]

Issue cloud – issues for all sources (hosts, cumulative, retrieved by Google scraper)

“Reality check” (4) “Public option” (10) “The Obama Plan” (4) “Consumer protections” (5) “Insurance protections” (3) “affordable coverage” (5) “insurance company bureaucrats ” (0) “Uninsured” (14) “Secure” (5) “Healthier” (5) “Status Quo” (4) “Donut Hole” (4) “inefficient” (5) “insurance company failure” (0) “health insurance reform” (6) “lobbyists” (5) “Death panels” (6) “Obamacare” (10) “Pro-life” (4) “Government takeover” (5) “Abortion” (10) “Socialized” (5) “Socialist” (7) “Communist” (2) “Euthanasia” (3) “Big Brother” (2) “Hitler” (4) “Nazi” (4) “The liberal elite” (0) “Extreme left-wing” (0) “Gun regulation” (0) “rationing” (6)

The News Sphere[53]

Issue cloud – issues for all sources (hosts, cumulative, retrieved by Google scraper)

“Reality check” (10) “Public option” (19) “The Obama Plan” (8) “Consumer protections” (8) “Insurance protections” (3) “affordable coverage” (13) “insurance company bureaucrats ” (13) “Uninsured” (28) “Secure” (14) “Healthier” (10) “Status Quo” (11) “Donut Hole” (6) “inefficient” (10) “insurance company failure” (0) “health insurance reform” (11) “lobbyists” (13) “Death panels” (8) “Obamacare” (14) “Pro-life” (10) “Government takeover” (10) “Abortion” (15) “Socialized” (10) “Socialist” (14) “Communist” (10) “Euthanasia” (9) “Big Brother” (10) “Hitler” (10) “Nazi” (10) “The liberal elite” (1) “Extreme left-wing” (1) “Gun regulation” (1) “rationing” (13)

When can conclude that at January 9^th, 2010 the terminology used by both the Obama administration and conservatives, is almost equally used in the three different spheres, with a little edge for Obama. The language of the Obama administration is slightly more used in the Web sphere. On the other, as mentioned earlier, the Web sphere is dominated by pro-Health Care websites. These results clearly show that the pro Health care sites adopt some of the terminology of the conservatives and simply negate it. The anti health care website are more careful with adapting the Obama administrations terminology but are simply outnumbered. The ‘neutral’ websites adopt but terminologies.

It is quite remarkable that the News Sphere, filled by professional journalists also adapts most of the language of both sides, although it slightly prefers the Obama administration’s language. This is mainly because it quotes both conservatives and progressives. Terms as “Hitler”, “Government Takeover” and “Death Panels” are almost equally as less radical terms. Notice that Fox News, not appeared in the first 50 results, and therefore is not included for example. In the time comparison this issues is addressed more elaborately.

The blogosphere show a somewhat same pattern as the newssphere and Web sphere  in general, but that seems to follow the general trend of hot topics. The blogosphere is from the three spheres the most focussed on one side of the story. A lot of the blogs adapt only terminology from the Obama administration or conservatives. It is also interesting that the blog en large simply do not adapt any, or one of the terms. Interestingly enough especially the pro Health care reform websites use most of the terminology, by both sides.

Term analysis
The results confirm Lakoff’s framing theory in general, but with a few exceptions. The terms that are most powerfully connected to a frame are used the most, especially around the care-frame of Obama. Topics as abortion and death panels are still very lively in the all the spheres. The Obama administrations ‘villainizing’ of the industry seems to effective, at least the words lobbyists and ineffective, but it less effective on the other terms. Lakoff’s theory that the ‘real’ debat is not about issues but on values is also confirmed by this research, with the exception of Public Option. This is mainly because Public Option is sacrificed in the reform, which is the topic of on ongoing debate.

Time comparison
One of the major problems with a time comparison using the Google Scraper is that Google does not provide search results from the past. Therefore it can be done by manually save the results, which makes it harder to make a solid comparison. I started this research in the beginning of November, and only got limited data (on a limited number of keywords) from November and December 2009 and January 2010. Therefore we can only see the end of the trend, but it provides some useful insights.

The data is from; November 2009; 27^{th [54] [55] [56]} ,December 2009; 26^th [57] (blogosphere) [58] (newsphere) [59] (Web sphere), 27^th [60] [61] [62], 29^th [63] [64] [65], 30^th [66] [67] [68], 31^st [69] [70] [71], and January 2010, 1^st [72] [73] [74], 9^th [75] [76] [77]. The data-set is to tiny to make general claims about trends, but it can tell us more about the data previously analysed. The data basically confirms the theory by Lakoff (2009a), and my analysis above.

Still there are some interesting insights. First of all, although I used a smaller group of terms, the conservative terms are slightly more adapted in November. But after the bill passes on the 25^th of December, you see the language changing; the spheres even adopt the official terms as “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”, as to expect especially in the news sphere.

The blogosphere is compared over time the most pro-health care reform, at least they adopt most of the language of the Obama administration. On the other hand the also adapted language like Hitler and Socialism more easily than the newssphere. The newssphere is also more clustered around a less terms, but the terms change over time. The Web sphere got more dominated by news and especially blogs over time. In November the Web sphere tended to link more to official sources. While in December and even more in January they link to news-sources and especially more to blogs. This indicates that blogosphere gets more dominant in the debate.

Conclusion
On the basis of my (limited) results, we can say that the conservative frame has been very effective, and still resonates in the three spheres. The fact that the pro Health care reform sites outnumber the anti health care sites in the most important Web results in November 2009, does not result in a lack of conservative terminology. In January 2010, there are more anti health care websites, still the pro health care are the majority. On the basis of this research we can also clearly see that the Obama administration adept a more powerful frame, that terminology is now even more used than the conservative terms. The blogosphere seemed to adept the least of the terminology. Although there are differences between the spheres, they all show the same pattern; the language of both sides is reflected on the all spheres. They all use the administrations language a little more.

Still, one could argue, that this is not directly reflected in the opinion polls (see figure 6). This is not only reflected by the number oppose or favor the health care reform plans, but especially with misinformation. Castells analysed that once a powerful frame is established, it is very hard to overwrite it. The counter frame leads to misinformation and mystification (Castells, 2009). The socially produced misperception of the War on Terror is a powerful example. Those misinformation strongly correlated with their opinion about “the war” (ibid).

Figure 6. A summary of the official opinion polls on health care reform.

More research is needed to get a better understanding of framing in the spheres, especially non-text based. In fact framing is not word-based, but exists of mental images (Lakoff, 2008). Jenkins (2009) and Duncombe (2007; 2009) share Lakoff’s theory (2009a), but from a fanstudies perpective. This is for instance embodied in the socialist Joker, as analysed by Whitney Phillips (Jenkins 2009).

Bibliography

Castells, Manuel (2009), Communication Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Castells, Manuel and Amelia Arsenault. (2006), Conquering the Mind, Conquering Iraq. < http://annenberg.usc.edu/Faculty/Communication/~/media/Faculty/Facpdfs/Castells%20Iraq%20misinformation%20pdf.ashx > accessed at November 10, 2009

Damasio, Antonio. (2003). Descartes’ Error. Pinguin

Grimmelmann, James (2008/2009), The Google Dilemma. New York: Law School Law Review, 53: 939 – 950.

Hayles, Katherine. N (2004), Print is flat, code is deep: The importance of media-specific analysis. Poetics Today. 25 (1): 67-90

Hewson et al. (2003), Internet research methods: a practical guide for the social and behavioural sciences. London: Sage, 26-55

Hindman, Matthew (2008), The Myth of Digital Democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, chapters 3-4

Jenkins, Henry (2006), Fans, Bloggers and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture. New York: New York University Press

— (2009), Unmasking the Joker. < http://henryjenkins.org/2009/08/unmasking_the_joker.html >, accessed at November 29, 2009

Lakoff, George (2004), Don’t think of an Elephant. New York: Penguin

— (2008) George Lakoff on the Political Mind < http://fora.tv/2008/06/20/George_Lakoff_on_The_Political_Mind >, accessed at December 26, 2009

— (2009a), The PolicySpeak Disaster for Health Care, < http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-lakoff/the-policyspeak-disaster_b_264043.html > accessed at November 2, 2009

— (2009b) Politics of Language, < http://fora.tv/2009/08/03/Politics_of_Language_George_Lakoff >, accessed at December 26, 2009

— (2009c), The Political Mind. New York: Penguin

Lovink, Geert. (2007) Zero Comments: blogging and critical Internet culture. New York: Routledge

Rogers, Richard (2004), Information Politics on the Web.  London: The MIT Press

— (2008), <http://www.govcom.org/publications/drafts/GCO_directoryfall.pdf > accessed at December 26, 2009

— (2009), The End of the Virtual. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press

Appendix 1 complete list

From left to right, ranking in the search query on 13-11-2009[78] at 15.00 (ranking in the search query on 9-11-2009 at 8:29[79]), url, source (News or Non-News), category (Pro, neutral or anti Health Care Reform). Please note that the search query on 9-11-2009 only included the first 40 results.

Appendix 2. News sources

From left to right, ranking in the search query on 13-11-2009 (ranking in the search query on 9-11-2009), url, source, number of pages in the top 50.

Appendix 3 Non-news sources

From left to right, ranking in the search query on 13-11-2009 at 15.00 (ranking in the search query on 9-11-2009 at 8:29), url, category (Pro, neutral or anti Health Care Reform).

Appendix 4 Time comparison

From left to right, ranking in the search query on 9-1-2010 (ranking in the search query on 13-11-2009), url, category (Pro, neutral or anti Health Care Reform).

[2] http://news.harrisinteractive.com/profiles/investor/ResLibraryView.asp?ResLibraryID=34367&GoTopage=5&Category=1777&BzID=1963&t=11 accessed at January 9th, 2010

[3] Unfortunately, there are some technical limitations, which I will further discuss in this paper.

[4] For example theory from Charles Fillmore

[5] I should mention that they are all employees to the University of South California, and closely connected in their theories. Castells’ knowledge is mainly based on that of his colleagues but from a different perspective (2009: 137)

[6] Obama seemed to realize this, when he countered critique about Reverend Wright with a speech on race.

[7] http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=972 accessed at January 9^th 2010

[8] Obama refused to use this term, which led to critique of Dick Cheney. Political analysts seem to favor Obama’s approach, but there is no opinion poll result jet.

[9] http://web.archive.org/web/20080322041951/www.rockridgeinstitute.org/aboutus

[10] http://web.archive.org/web/20080705173810/http://www.rockridgenation.org/blog/archive/2008/04/21/the-rockridge-era-ends

[11] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/10/pelosi-backs-off-public-o_n_387197.html

[12] http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/pubs/Harris_Poll_2009_09_09.pdf

[13] http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/pubs/Harris_Poll_2009_10_21.pdf

[14] http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/press/nielsen-fact-sheet-2010.pdf

[15] http://opennet.net/research/regions/namerica

[16] http://archive.org

[17] http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/we-knew-web-was-big.html

[18] http://www.alexa.com

[19] You can check the number of inlinks by quering link: *webadres* in Google

[20] PageRank 10 is for the sites with most inlinks and PageRank 0 is for the sites with the least inlinks

[21] http://www.seomoz.org/

[22] http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35291

[23] http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?answer=54041

[24] http://www.google.co.uk/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en_GB&answer=54048#signedout

[25] http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=%22health+care+reform%22&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8, accessed January 7, 2009

[26] http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/eye-tracking-studies-more-than-meets.html

[27] http://www.digitalmethods.net/Digitalmethods/TheSpheres

[28] http://www.healthreform.gov/

[29] http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22health+care+reform%22%2C+%22health+reform%22%2C+%22health+insurance+reform%22%2C+%22health+care+reform+bill%22&ctab=0&geo=all&date=mtd&sort=0

[30] http://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php (accessed 13-11-2009 10:37)

[31] http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=link:www.gop.gov/solutions/healthcare&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 (accessed 13-11-2009 10:35)

[32] http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/static.py?page=guide.cs&guide=22880&topic=22916

[33] http://news1.newsmax.com/obama-healthcare/

[34] http://tools.issuecrawler.net/beta/harvestUrls/

[35] http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=120607013434

[36] http://www.gop.gov/policy-news/10/01/08/policy-brief-issues-to-be

[37] http://www.johnmccain.com/issues/details.aspx?id=9

[38] http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,580325,00.html

[39] http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/weekly-address-president-obama-outlines-benefits-health-reform-take-effect-year

[40] http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/remarks-by-the-president-to-a-joint-session-of-congress-on-health-care/

[41] http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/health-care

[42] http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/

[43] http://tools.issuecrawler.net/beta/triangulate/

[44] http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/

[45] http://www.healthreform.gov

[46] http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/73371-palin-death-panels-may-be-in-final-health-bill

[47] http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/

[48] http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/pubs/Harris_Poll_2009_09_21.pdf

[49] http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200908270036

[50] http://news.harrisinteractive.com/profiles/investor/ResLibraryView.asp?BzID=1963&ResLibraryID=35324&Category=1777

[51] http://tools.issuecrawler.net/beta/results/google/Healthcarereformweb09Jan20101609.txt

[52] http://tools.issuecrawler.net/beta/results/blogsearch/HealthcarereformblogJan20101609.txt

[53] http://tools.issuecrawler.net/beta/results/google/Healthcarereformnews09Jan20101630.txt

[54] http://tools.issuecrawler.net/beta/scrapeGoogle/prevResultsUtf8.php?prevResult=../results/google/result27Nov20090855.txt

[55] http://tools.issuecrawler.net/beta/scrapeGoogle/prevResultsUtf8.php?prevResult=../results/google/result27Nov20090858.txt

[56] http://tools.issuecrawler.net/beta/results/blogsearch/result27Nov20090919.txt

[57] http://tools.issuecrawler.net/beta/results/blogsearch/result26Dec20090059.txt

[58] http://tools.issuecrawler.net/beta/results/google/result26Dec20090058.txt

[59] http://tools.issuecrawler.net/beta/scrapeGoogle/prevResultsUtf8.php?prevResult=../results/google/result26Dec20090054.txt

[60] http://tools.issuecrawler.net/beta/googleBlogsearch/prevResultsUtf8.php?prevResult=../results/blogsearch/result28Dec20090005.txt

[61] http://tools.issuecrawler.net/beta/scrapeGoogle/prevResultsUtf8.php?prevResult=../results/google/result28Dec20090005.txt

[62] http://tools.issuecrawler.net/beta/scrapeGoogle/prevResultsUtf8.php?prevResult=../results/google/result28Dec20090006.txt

[63] http://tools.issuecrawler.net/beta/googleBlogsearch/prevResultsUtf8.php?prevResult=../results/blogsearch/result29Dec20090015.txt

[64] http://tools.issuecrawler.net/beta/scrapeGoogle/prevResultsUtf8.php?prevResult=../results/google/result29Dec20090021.txt

[65] http://tools.issuecrawler.net/beta/scrapeGoogle/prevResultsUtf8.php?prevResult=../results/google/result29Dec20090017.txt

[66] http://tools.issuecrawler.net/beta/googleBlogsearch/prevResultsUtf8.phtp?prevResult=../results/blogsearch/result30Dec20090108.txt

[67] http://tools.issuecrawler.net/beta/scrapeGoogle/prevResultsUtf8.php?prevResult=../results/google/result30Dec20090109.txt

[68] http://tools.issuecrawler.net/beta/scrapeGoogle/prevResultsUtf8.php?prevResult=../results/google/result30Dec20090108.txt

[69] http://tools.issuecrawler.net/beta/results/blogsearch/result30Dec20092201.txt

[70] http://tools.issuecrawler.net/beta/scrapeGoogle/prevResultsUtf8.php?prevResult=../results/google/result31Dec20091713.txt

[71] http://tools.issuecrawler.net/beta/scrapeGoogle/prevResultsUtf8.php?prevResult=../results/google/result30Dec20092201.txt

[72] http://tools.issuecrawler.net/beta/googleBlogsearch/prevResultsUtf8.php?prevResult=../results/blogsearch/result01Jan20102214.txt

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Introduction

According to Henry Jenkins we’re moving to a participatory culture, and there is an intersection between popular culture and politics (Jenkins 2009a). Despite of the widely spread criticism, both politics and the entertainment industry try to use this participatory culture. We’ve seen the first results in the presidential Obama campaign (and later on in the fight around health care). Jenkins and Duncombe think because of the engaging factor it is even a solution to Putnam’s Bowling Alone. Like Putnam acknowledged in his newer work Better Together, social media seems to engage.

Arguably the internet feed this cultural change towards a participatory culture. The internet is the first many-to-many medium (Shirky 2009). And “digital media have blurred relations between the once clearly demarcated realms of producers and consumers”(Uricchio, 2009: 143).

The role of social media, arguably, starts with the French politician Ségolène Royal (Zielman and Rottger 2009; De Kosnik 2008). Nevertheless the most effective political campaign was that of the president of the USA, Barack Obama. Therefore I will use the Obama campaign as a case study.

In this paper I will explore the role of popular culture in politics through the concept of transmedia storytelling. Stephen Duncombe asks the question: how can and how is pop culture used politically? In this paper I will narrow the question down to how can and how is pop culture used in the Obama campaign through social media?

This paper will explore theories about political engagement through popular culture along with Duncombe’s theory (2007, 2009).

The paper will explore transmedia storytelling as concept (the term is coined by Jenkins in 2003). Although there are many similar concepts (like Leadbeater’s (2007) or Bruns’ (2008)), I think transmedia storytelling is the best concept to analyze the success of the social media strategy of Obama, because it is the most complete theory and includes the role of popular culture (and fandom) best. In the first chapter I will use the Transmedia Storytelling Syllabus of Jenkins USC-course to analyse what Transmedia storytelling is, and how it’s done in practice. Geoffrey Long further analysed the success factors in case studies of transmedia storytelling (2007).

Van Dijck and Nieborg (2009) pointed out it’s not sure if Jenkins is defending a business model or a cultural model. The answer seems to be he’s defending both. Although the case studies used by Long and Jenkins are mainly commercial ones, Jenkins talks about politics as well. Because politics and popular culture blend, I think it’s useful the take a look at commercial methods as well and analyse how the ten key factors set by Long  (2007) apply on the Obama.

I will use the analysis of Castells, De Kosnik, Jenkins, Munster, Roberts and many others of the Obama campaign to put the role of pop culture in it’s context. Where exactly did pop culture play a role? What are new habits, and how do people behave? What are the netiquettes?

Transmedia storytelling seems to be able to be the perfect blend of popular culture and politics. The Obama campaign is the perfect example of the political potential of a successful transmedia strategy (Jenkins 2009c). Obama may be even the first presidential transmedia story/brand himself (Jenkins 2009b).

Index (concept)
Opening (500 words)
Shirky, Jenkins, Bruns, Leadbeater, Uricchio, Carr

What is Transmedia Storytelling? (1000 words)
Jenkins, Long, Benkler

Transmedia storytelling in the Obama campaign (1500)
Jenkins, Duncombe, Carr, De Kosnik, Castells, Blakley, Munster, Roberts

Participatory culture and digital rhetoric (1500)
Jenkins, Duncombe (and therefore Gramsci, Hall and Lippman), Putnam, Losh, Castells, Manovich

Conclusion (500 words)

Bibliography (concept)

Baringhorst, Sigrid et. al. Political Campaigning on the Web. (2009) Transcript

Benkler, Yochai. The Wealth of Networks. (2005) Yale Press

Blakley, Johanna. MIT World. Politics and popular culture. (2009) < http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/655 >

Bruns, Axel. Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life and Beyond: From Production to Produsage (2008)

Castells, Manuel. Communication Power. (2009) Oxford: Oxford University Press

De Kosnik, Abigail. Participatory democracy and Hillary Clinton’s marginalized fandom. (2008) < http://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/view/47/59 >

Duncombe, Stephen. Dream: Re-imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy. (2007) New Press

—- MIT World. Politics and popular culture. (2009) < http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/655 >

Jenkins, Henry. Convergence culture, where old and new media collide. (2008) New York: New York University Press

—- MIT World. Politics and popular culture. (2009a) < http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/655 >

—- Transmedia Storytelling and Entertainment — A Syllabus. August 11, 2009 (2009b)< http://henryjenkins.org/2009/08/transmedia_storytelling_and_en.html >

Leadbeater, Charles. We-Think. (2007)

Long, Geoffrey. Transmedia Storyteling. (2007) < http://cms.mit.edu/research/theses/GeoffreyLong2007.pdf>

Losh, Elizabeth. Virtualpolitik: An Electronic History of Government Media-Making in a Time of War, Scandal, Disaster, Miscommunication, and Mistakes (2009) The MIT Press

Munster, Anna and Andrew Murphie. Web 2.0: Before, during and after the event. (2009) < http://journal.fibreculture.org/issue14/ >

Putnam, Robert. Bowling Alone (2000)

—- Better Together: Restoring the American Community (2004)

Roberts, Ben. Beyond the ‘Networked Public Sphere’: Politics, Participation and Technics in Web 2.0. (2009) < http://journal.fibreculture.org/issue14/issue14_roberts.html >

Shirky, Clay. TED Talk 2009:  “How Social Media Can Make History” (2009) < http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_cellphones_twitter_facebook_can_make_history.html >

Uricchio, William. Moving beyond the artefact, Lessons from participatory culture. (2009) Digital Material. Utrecht: Amsterdam University Press

Van Dijck, José and David Nieborg. Wikinomics and its discontents: a critical analysis of Web 2.0 business manifestos. (2009) < http://www.gamespace.nl/content/Wikinomics_and_its_discontents_2009.pdf >

It might be just a ‘journalistic echo’, but most criticized is the lack of meaning and purpose of Twitter. “I don’t care what people are doing right now”. In my opinion this is a high culture reflex and can placed next to ‘stupid morons watch garbage on their televisions.’ First it is a reflex because it seems to be smart to criticize. Secondly, most journalists didn’t even discovered Twitter well enough to tell what Twitter is, not to speak about thorough research at all.

I think Twitter is fun to a lot of people, and Twitterers are not stupid in general. Of course, you can use Twitter in various ways, like you can watch ‘garbage’ on television. But on Twitter, the follow button even gives more control compared to the remote. Twitter is (to some extend) what you would like it to be. (So if you would like to see garbage in it, you can). But it is always (more or less) personal. The journalists seem to equate personal to useless. In that way speech would be useless as well. Again, you can use Twitter, or any other form of communication, for useless and useful purposes.

In my humble opinion the personal aspect of Twitter offers opportunities, ironically especially to journalists. The Dutch news correspondent Joris Luyendijk expressed his concerns about journalism in his famous book “Het zijn net mensen”(2007) (later translated in “Fit to Print”). Luyendijk discovered, during his work as correspondent for various media, the impossibility to (dis)cover and report the ‘facts’. The book examines the limitations of journalism. There are always two sides of the story, but the media doesn’t give enough space or time to cover both well. A journalist, according to Luyendijk, is always coloured by his own experiences and limited to borders of journalism. The world doesn’t always fit to journalism, and we should be more clear and fair about that, wrote Luyendijk.

In my opinion the Dutch USA-correspondent Eelco Bosch van Rosenthal (on Twitter @ebvr) shows that Twitter can help to achieve Luyendijk’s ‘mission’. Bosch van Rosenthal uses Twitter to extend his reports like he also uses a blog. Twitter’s special characteristics add a dimension to other tools like the blog. First Twitter seems to be more personal in general; again it depends on the Twitterer. The conversation benefits in two ways; people seem to be more polite and give a more personal view. Secondly Twitter is easy and ubiquitous. You install an application on your mobile phone and computer. Writing a ‘Tweet’ is much easier than writing a blogpost. You can see these characteristics in Bosch van Rosenthal’s tweets. He writes about his work, what he reads and finds interesting. For example:

“typed the words Iranian regime and realize all of a sudden that we also never speak of the American regime. Pavlov. Shame.”

But he also replies to and talks with other twitterers. It doesn’t only make him more accessible, but you are also able to place his items in the news better in its context. You might not know him in person, but you can see what influence him, and where some conclusions come from.

Twitter is not the only and definitely not the perfect or complete solution to the journalistic problems Luyendijk pointed out. Eelco Bosch van Rosenthal is not a journalist in the complicated Middle East. The journalist still makes (journalistic) decisions what he will (and would like to) tell. But at least it makes it easier to place the journalistic story in its context. The larger public don’t use (or even know about the existence of) Twitter. Last but not least 140 characters can easily be misunderstood. But the better journalists experiment with new possibilities to inform better, instead of their critical reflex to the new.

Twitter can enrich a view on complicated problems in the world, and can make journalistic work easier. Most theorists (Castells 2009, Zengotita 2007) acknowledge a huge role for media in society, often even seen as information society (Webster 2006). The least we can do is research new possibilities well, instead of lean back in our comfortable habits. Even if it can only solve journalistic problems a little, and I think it can, it would be worth to experiment with Twitter.

Further reading and viewing

http://www.volkskrant.nl/multimedia/article1143853.ece/Alle_Sp!ts-verslaggevers_moeten_twitteren (Dutch)

http://weblogs.nrc.nl/klaver/2009/07/30/waarom-blijven-we-kijken/ (English)

http://www.themonthly.com.au/journalism-misrespresenting-middle-east-joris-luyendijk-1992 (English, Video interview Joris Luyendijk)

Reference

Castells, Manuel. Communication Power. 2009

Webster, Frank. Theories of the Information Society. (thirdedition). Routledge: Londen, 2006

Zengotita, Thomas. Mediated. 2007

In 2005 social finance arises from the web 2.0-era. Participatory web projects offer a broad spectrum of opportunities. Banking 2.0 is “a way for people to lend and borrow directly with each other online[…]”. You can own a small piece of a footballclub at myfootballclub.co.uk. “You are invited to join members from over 80 countries who own Ebbsfleet United and vote on all key decisions from team selection to financial budgets. Membership costs £35 annually.”. Obama raised an enormous amount of money online and at Sellaband.com you can invest in a band.

For me, the most interesting form of crowdfunding is the microloan-service of Kiva.org. The website of Kiva.org is filled with entrepreneurs from all around the globe (especially the poorest country’s) in need of a small amount of money to start a business. For instance I can loan 25 dollars to a fishing group in Uganda. Together with another 55 other loaners there is 4000 dollars raised, which is enough to buy nets, boats and rods. The fisherman’s will pay our loan back in 5 terms. The last term ends at 1 March 2010. In March I can decide to re-lend or withdraw the funds.

Micro financing is not really new, but the web can add a social dimension. To own a footballclub might not be really profitable, but it’s definitely fun to be part of the footballclub. Owners make movies on their mobile phones of ‘talents’ in Brazil, and arrange carpools for the matches. It’s at least interesting to see if this kind of democratic decision-making will actually work.

There are a lot of similarities between the Obama campaign and crowdfundingprojects like Kiva. The Obama campaign was centralized around the slogan “it’s about you”. The crowdfunding-trend seems to be a countertrend against the feeling that people are tiny dots in the huge universe. You can actually do something seems to be the promise of these new organizations. Microfinance is really promising (although it can’t completely solve poverty) like Jonathan Murdoch researched in The Economics of Microfinance, 2005.

How can social networking help these organizations grow, like it did in the Obama campaign? And more important what impact will The social part of the campaign of Obama was an important factor. On his own social network, mybarackobama.com, status was gained by the amount of money you raised. It might be an old trick, but it was one of the few ways to get status in this network. Obama even extended the network by using all the networks his target-group used. Fundraising became a social activity, with ‘attention’ and ‘status’ as a reward.

What are the implications of social finance on society? What is the social of social finance? (Is it especially linked to status and identity or is it more?

While I was creating and editing the “Hijab Tax”-entry, I noticed that Wikipedia is still ‘just’ an encyclopedia, in spite of its mission;

As an encyclopedia building project, Wikipedia seeks to create a summary of all human knowledge: all of topics covered by a conventional print encyclopedia plus any other “notable” (therefore verifiable by published sources) topics, which are permitted by unlimited disk space.

The hijab tax is a proposal for a new tax of the Dutch politician Geert Wilders. The hijab is, according to Geert Wilders, a contamination of landscape and anti-woman. That’s why he proposes a tax of 1000 euro’s a year for wearing a hijab. The hijab tax seems to be political framing, and not serious at all. (My guess is that Wilders aimed to get people talking about the word “kopvoddentax”, which is a humiliating term.) On the other hand, I couldn’t answer the question ‘why should it be excluded from the summary of all human knowledge?’ For that reason I decided to create a Kopvoddentax entry in Dutch and a Hijab Tax-entry in de English version of Wikipedia.

The Wikipedians nominated the Dutch version of ‘Kopvoddentax’ almost immediately for disposal for the following reasons;

1. We don’t like the word, and it should never be included in the Dutch language.
2. It’s just temporary, only if it will be repeated a lot this year it can be added to the Wiktionary. ‘Wikipedia is not for new words, leave that decision to the dictionary Van Dale’
3. It’s not big enough, it should be added to the Partij van de Vrijheid entry, or we even should create a new entry: “Rijksbegroting 2010”.
4. Because Geert Wilders is wrong.

(The English version only had some minor edits)

Although I agree with the first point, I would say this is a political reason. On the other hand, why should we accept this kind of framing? So it might be better the rename the entry to “hoofddoek-belasting” (hijab-tax). The second and third reason seem absolutely old fashion to me. Why should the summary of ‘all human knowledge’ wait until an institution decide whether a word is used enough to add it to its official language.

I think the third reason, even more than the second, reveals the old logic of an encyclopedia. Although Wikipedia uses some potential of the internet extensively, it is still based on the foundations of an encyclopedia. Although its structure is loudly applauded[i], many agree that some of its functions doesn’t work properly[ii]. For example the categorization is a total mess. Partly because of semantics, but for a large extend due to Wikipedia’s much bigger size.

Another example of the encyclopedic style is the language. Wikipedia’s language has to be ‘encyclopedic’ and cover ‘encyclopedic’ questions. The question is, is an encyclopedia (still) the best way to summarize human knowledge? Maybe it is even better to ask, what is the purpose of a summarization of human knowledge?

It might be more fruitful, to use another approach to Wikipedia than the old encyclopedic way. To return to the Hijab-tax, what is wrong with a small article, where you can link to in the bigger articles? It might not be encyclopedic in the old way, but why should we stick to limitations books had? Until now Wikipedia refused to allow video, although they will change that in the near future.[iii]

How can Wikipedia benefit by getting rid of its encyclopedic roots?

Ps. The illustration is the Wikipedia book made by Rob Matthews.

[ii] For example in Weinberg, D. Everything is Miscellaneous, 2007 the categorization is questioned.

[iii] http://www.technologyreview.com/web/22900/?a=f

Een essay over manifesto’s, fandom en de vermeende rol van nieuwe media bij politiek.

Inleiding

Rita Verdonk is heilig overtuigd van de kracht van nieuwe media. Haar mediabureau Mangrove zette een volledige website op poten; www.Trotsopnederland.com. Verdonk heeft een account op Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Hyves en zelfs een eigen wiki. ‘Net als Obama, maar wij waren eerder’, vertelde ze trots aan Matthijs van Nieuwkerk in De Wereld Draait Door. ‘Bij Obama was iedereen lyrisch, maar over ons heb ik nog weinig gehoord, hoe kan dat’, jammerde Verdonk vervolgens. Deze vraag zal ze Mangrove ongetwijfeld ook hebben voorgelegd, die haar vermoedelijk het (echte) antwoord schuldig moesten blijven.

Nieuwe media evangelisten, de zogehete digerati, buitelen op congressen, in boeken en weblogs over elkaar heen om utopische oplossingen te bieden in een veranderende wereld. De digerati wijzen er smalend op dat “oude media” het steeds moeilijker hebben, en dat wie de nieuwe media niet begrijpt kopje onder gaat. Utopische business manifesto’s als We Think, The Long Tail en Wikinomics vertellen hun lezers over een nieuwe wereld, die een nieuwe aanpak vergt (Van Dijck & Nieborg 2009). Deze aanpak wordt gepresenteerd als een formule tot succes, maar is dat lang niet altijd. In dit essay betoog ik dat er geen gestandaardiseerde succesformule is, en dat randzaken als fandom, positivisme en doelgroep een belangrijke rol spelen.

Business manifesto’s
Professor José van Dijck en promovendus David Nieborg schreven een kritische analyse over deze business manifesto’s en hun bijbehorende buzzwords als collabrative culture, mass creativity en co-creation (Van Dijck & Nieborg 2009).

“For one thing, manifestos resound invocation of an apocalyptic present tense: ‘now is the time for action’ and therefore they are ‘documents of demand, rather than reason.’” (Van Dijck & Nieborg 2009)

Nieborg en Van Dijck (2009) wijzen erop dat de manifesto’s vooral taaltechnisch slim in elkaar zitten. De boeken hebben het vaak over wij, en doen je geloven dat iedereen met gezond verstand begrijpt hoe deze wereld in elkaar zit. Problemen worden gepresenteerd als algemeen geaccepteerd, en oplossingen worden rechtstreeks aangereikt in de boeken. “Its language is short, apodictic, fact-stating rather than fact-finding, matter-of-fact rather than persuasive” (Van Dijck & Nieborg 2009).

Debunking The Long Tail
Dat de oplossingen worden gepresenteerd als ‘niet meer dan logisch’ is niet vreemd, en een belangrijke succesfactor van veel manifesto’s. Wie er niet in gelooft, begrijpt het niet, laat grote kansen schieten en hoort niet bij de groep. Wie niet voor is, is tegen, en een gemeenschappelijke vijand. Maar het is wel opvallend hoe weinig tegenspraak deze manifesto’s tot nu hebben gehad. Kritische analyses krijgen nauwelijks aandacht en worden vaak weggewuifd als onbegrepen.

Een van de belangrijkste ‘nieuwe’ modellen door de komst van het web is volgens velen The Long Tail. Volgens Chris Anderson is de pareto-rule, die zegt dat 80% van de omzet van 20% van het aanbod komt, verleden tijd (Anderson 2006). “The Future of Business is Selling Less of More” is de ondertitel van zijn boek en verraad gelijk de stelligheid waarmee Anderson de oude zakenregel naar het land der fabelen verwijst. Wie The Long Tail niet begrijpt zal niet overleven, beweert Anderson (2006). Het boek laat haarfijn zien hoe bijvoorbeeld het internationale internetwarenhuis Amazon.com een bloeiende handel startte in Long Tail artikelen, een gigantisch aanbod niche artikelen (2006).

Eind 2008 toonde een eerste wetenschappelijke studie van Associate Professor Anita Elberse van Harvard Business School het tegendeel (2008). Op basis van gegevens van Nielsen, de muziekdienst Rhapsody en de dvd-verhuurder Quickflix concludeerde Elberse;

It was a compelling idea: In the digitized world, there’s more money to be made in niche offerings than in blockbusters. The data tell a different story. (Elberse 2008)

Volgens Elberse heeft Anderson wel een punt dat het aanbod fragmenteert, maar de vraag fragmenteert niet automatisch mee. Het aanbod wordt veel groter, maar de consument heeft amper oog voor deze nicheproducten (2008). Anderson tipt dus wel een verandering aan, maar de wetten die hij voorschrijft om je voordeel met die verandering te doen kloppen allerminst. Een tweede onderzoek bevestigd de conclusie van Elberse nog een keer.

Je zou denken dat zulke onderzoeken de evangelisten aan het denken zouden zetten, maar het tegendeel is waar. Een exemplarische reactie komt van Erwin Blom. In een artikel met de naam “Long Tail-ontkenners snappen het niet” schrijft Blom;

Ik geloof Anderson. Daar heb ik geen wetenschappelijk onderzoek voor nodig. Want is het niet Google die goud geld verdient dankzij al die versnipperde sites met beperkt bezoek, maar advertenties van de zoekspecialist?[…] Als ze The Long Tail maar zouden geloven en begrijpen. (Blom 2009)

Dit is precies het probleem van deze manifesto’s in het algemeen; ze weten de veranderingen aardig aan te stippen, maar vergroten deze trends vervolgens disproportioneel uit. De universele wetten die ze eraan koppelen, zijn op zijn minst wankel en niet te bewijzen. De industrie gaat echter met deze ‘zekerheden’ aan de haal in onzekere tijden als een laatste strohalm, aangewakkerd door een horde marketeers en digerati.

Obama’s mediastrategie

Terug naar de vraag van Verdonk, waarom werd Obama bejubeld en zij niet? Volgens Manuel Castells (2008) spelen er vijf belangrijke punten een belangrijke rol in de overwinning van Obama:

• Obama nam al zeer vroeg afstand van de oorlog in Irak
• Hij had een duidelijke doelgroep, namelijk jongeren
• Hij wist dankzij nieuwe media een band te creëren met deze doelgroep en hen te mobiliseren.
  • Een politiek schandaal rond zijn voormalig dominee, wist hij hierdoor in zijn voordeel om te buigen
• Hij kreeg door deze steun veel meer geld binnen (dankzij nieuwe media), zijn campagnekas was daardoor een stuk gevulder dan die van zijn rivaal John McCain
• De politieke framing rond de woorden “hope” en “change” waren ijzersterk, en kregen bovendien extra lading doordat ze op het web werden herhaald en geremixed.

Alexander Klöpping zegt dat bovendien fandom een belangrijke rol heeft gespeeld bij de overwinning van Obama (2009). Obama toonde niet alleen dat hij jongerencultuur begreep en respecteerde, hij bood bovendien een podium voor deze jongeren. Klöpping noemt als voorbeeld een speech waarbij Obama het vuil van zijn schouders veegde, net als in de populaire clip van Jay-Z “Dirt of My Shoulders” (Klöpping 2009). Populaire cultuur krijgt zo een belangrijke rol in de politiek. Sterker nog stelt Stephen Duncombe in een interview met Henry Jenkins, het is inmiddels de vraag “hoe wordt populaire cultuur in de politiek gebruikt”(Jenkins 2007).

Klöpping deed onderzoek naar de fancultuur rond Obama op het online artiestenplatform DeviantART.

In april 2009 zijn er zo’n 20.000 inzendingen die betrekking hebben met Barack Obama (overigens zijn er zo’n 1.000 inzendingen over Joe Biden, zo’n 5000 over John McCain en 3.300 over Sarah Palin. Inzendingen die meerdere kandidaten bevatten worden dubbel geteld) (Klöpping 2009).

Niet alleen was het aantal inzendingen veel hoger, ook waren ze een stuk positiever dan over McCain. Natuurlijk waren er ook negatieve associaties met Obama, maar dat waren er een stuk minder dan over McCain volgens Klöpping (2009). Onderzoeker David Gauntlett meent dat een collectief gesmeed wordt door dingen (vooral fysiek) te maken (2007). We voelen ons zo meer betrokken bij het geheel; “making is connecting” (Gauntlett 2009). Gauntlett denkt dat langzaam de cultuur waarin massamedia en een politieke elite ons vertellen hoe de wereld in elkaar zit verandert. In plaats daarvan zijn we zelf steeds meer onderdeel van die media, en zijn we meer betrokken en dus verantwoordelijk voor verbetering (2009).

Dit klinkt wellicht utopisch, maar de gedachten van Gauntlett stippen wel degelijk een belangrijk punt in de campagne aan. Obama’s positieve campagne, die het wij gevoel aanwakkert, doet in feite hetzelfde als de business manifesto’s als We Think. Volgens Nieborg en Van Dijck speelt het denken ‘wij’ en positieve connotaties een belangrijke rol in de populariteit van deze manifesto’s (2009). Volgens Jenkins is het wij typerend voor de jongerencultuur, terwijl het denken in ik vooral voor oudere van toepassing is (Jenkins 2008c). De positieve boodschap van Obama biedt ruimte en hoop om samen te werken, en is een belangrijke motor geweest achter de collectieve samenwerking. De samenwerking was bovendien nog nooit zo makkelijk dankzij nieuwe media.

Fans vormen een collectief. Fandom brengt individuele mensen met een gedeelde interesse bij elkaar, faciliteert discussies en mobiliseert nieuwe fans. Sinds het midden van de jaren ’90 zijn al deze elementen een stuk eenvoudiger geworden door digitale technologieen. Tijdens de laatste presidentsverkiezingen in de VS zijn deze technologieen efficienter dan ooit ingezet. (Klöpping 2009)

Zoals Castells (2008) aangaf was Obama’s keuze om zich duidelijk te richten op jongeren een schot in de roos. Volgens onderzoek van danah boyd speelt fandom een belangrijke rol in het leven van veel jongeren (boyd 2008). Jongeren zijn daardoor gevoeliger voor fandom. Bovendien kunnen ze goed omgaan met nieuwe media, terwijl oudere doelgroepen daar soms nog moeite mee hebben. Het zijn tot nu toe dan ook vooral jongeren geweest die nieuwe media gebruikten voor politieke doeleinden. De ‘Twitterrevolutie’ in Moldavië was bijvoorbeeld georganiseerd door een vijfentwintige jarige. Ze mobiliseerde voornamelijk een groep jonge demonstranten via Twitter. Op moment van schrijven vinden hevige demonstraties in Iran plaats, ook in dit geval zijn het voornamelijk jongeren. Twitter wordt gebruikt om informatie en demonstraties te coördineren. De dienst besloot zelfs een onderhoudsbeurt uit te stellen om de enige communicatie die er nog was, te kunnen behouden .

Framing speelde een belangrijke rol in het creëren van de fancultuur rond Obama. In de BBC documentaire “Yes We Can, The Lost Art of Oratory” werd uitgebreid geanalyseerd hoe jongeren idolaat raakte van hun idool Barack Hussein Obama. Stem, snelheid, intonatie en een goed gevoel voor humor speelden een belangrijke rol. Maar nog belangrijker waren de teksten die woord voor woord werden ontleed op fora en YouTube (BBC 2009). Obama heeft een jong team nieuwe media specialisten en zijn speechschrijver Jon Favreau is pas 28 jaar oud. Het team stond zo dicht(er) bij de jongerencultuur (BBC 2009). De speeches kregen extra lading door de bekende remix van de artiest will.I.am, waar veel grote sterren aan meewerkte. De was het begin van vele filmpjes van fans, waardoor de speeches van Obama extra lading kregen, en de rol van fandom als maar groter werd.

Duncombe zegt dat vooral ook de totale uitwerking in uitingen op bijvoorbeeld de website rond hope een belangrijke succesfactor zijn in het vergaren en vooral betrekken van fans (Jenkins 2007). Ook dit zien we in de manifesto’s terug, die zich centreren rondom positieve boodschappen, en hoop bieden in een veranderende tijd. Volgens Duncombe heeft populaire cultuur hiermee definitief intrede gedaan in de politiek (Jenkins 2007). ‘Je kunt als politicus niet langer populaire cultuur buiten de politiek houden, omdat je daarmee niet alleen de cultuur maar voornamelijk de dromen van je potentiële kiezers buiten je politiek houdt’. Juist het insluiten van dromen zorgt voor krachtige metaforen, sterke speeches en daardoor positieve framing, zegt Duncombe (Jenkins 2007).

Is Obama now America’s most powerful fan boy? Early returns suggest that it may just be the case: there are so many stories now about the Obama family voting on American Idol and reading the Harry Potter books together. (Jenkins 2008a)

De fancultuur heeft bovendien nog een ander voordeel, het biedt een belangrijk wapen tegen wat Castells (1998) de crisis of democracy noemt, door het politieke systeem wordt gepersonaliseerde politieke steeds belangrijker. Hierdoor wordt karaktermoord een belangrijk wapen (Castells 2007). Een actie van MoveOn.org liet zien welke desastreuze gevolgen dat had voor George W. Bush. De website riep op om een anti-Bush filmpje van 30 seconden te maken. De website kreeg meer dan 1500 filmpjes terug waarvan velen ijzersterk, en veel krachtiger dan reguliere politieke spots.

I think that this time around, campaigns got used to the fact that anything that they put out there could be pirated, remixed, mashed-up and recirculated. (Jenkins 2008b)

Bush had geen krachtige schare fans die zo’n campagne konden pareren. De Republikeinen staan bekend om hun negatieve campagnes, en ook Obama kreeg menig verwijt om de oren. Op de website www.Fightthesmears.com stond tijdens de campagne een overzicht van alle ‘leugens’ die er door zijn tegenstanders verspreid werd. Zijn fans konden niet alleen zien wat Obama te zeggen had over deze leugens, maar ze zelf ook aanmelden. De website boodt bovendien widgets aan, waarmee aanhangers een blokje over de laatste leugens op hun website konden plaatsen. Obama zorgde ervoor dat zijn aanhangers zo ook McCain als gezamenlijke tegenstander gingen zien, en zich persoonlijke aangevallen voelden.

Tot slot kunnen we over Obama zeggen dat het niet persé nieuwe media an sich waren die hem de overwinning bezorgden, maar hoe hij deze media als geheel inzette. Hij was overal aanwezig waar zijn doelgroep was, en liet bijvoorbeeld linkse blogs links liggen (Nieborg 2008). Het wordt door de besproken theoretici weinig genoemd, maar nieuwe media zorgde er ook voornamelijk voor dat Obama zo snel kon groeien. Hij wist zijn underdog positie in een kleine twee jaar om te buigen tot de grote favoriet. Het was nog nooit zo makkelijk om een groep te organiseren op Facebook en MySpace. De sociale software die Obama gebruikte om een zijn aanhangers te helpen zichzelf te organiseren heeft hem veel gebracht. Zijn doelgroep jongeren konden goed met deze sociale media overweg. De snelheid van communicatie heeft Obama ongetwijfeld geholpen zo snel tot topfavoriet te groeien.

Verdonk’s mediastrategie
Als we deze verfijnde strategie vergelijken met die van Verdonk, zien we grote verschillen. Het zijn niet zozeer de middelen die Verdonk in zet, want ook zij zet een breed palet middelen in, maar wel hoe ze die in zet. De basis die Obama zo goed wist te leggen, ontbrak duidelijk bij Verdonk. Zij heeft niet (duidelijk) voor een jongere doelgroep gekozen. Haar doelgroep zit duidelijk niet op Twitter, Hyves en Facebook. Terwijl Obama uitstraalt nieuwe media te begrijpen (hij vocht bijvoorbeeld voor het behoud van zijn BlackBerry in het Witte Huis), ziet het er bij Verdonk allemaal nog wat knullig uit. Ze doet haar best de media te gebruiken, maar is duidelijk niet goed ingevoerd in de cultuur.

Op haar site staan logo’s van sociale netwerken alsof het souvenirstickers zijn op een caravan. Maar dan van plekken waar ze nooit geweest is. (Van Jole 2008)

De achterban van Verdonk is versplinterd en niet gegroepeerd in de sociale netwerken. De wiki van Verdonk is een chaos. De enkele aanhangers begrijpen duidelijk niet hoe de wiki werkt, en gebruiken het als klaagmuur tegen het kabinet. De aanhang van D66 is duidelijk beter ingevoerd en plaatste op de wiki een lemma over Alexander Pechtold waarin ze hem als held bestempelde. Verdonk besloot daarop haar wiki deels te sluiten, wat in internetcultuur een doodszonde is en regelrecht tegen het principe van een wiki ingaat. Dat een wiki moeilijk te onderhouden is, en dat zelfs Wikipedia moeite heeft met cybervandalisme kon Verdonk er niet van weerhouden toch een wiki te willen gebruiken. Het falen van haar wiki is exemplarisch voor de internetstrategie van Verdonk. Media die soms wel degelijk kunnen werken, vergen een geraffineerde aanpak, en uitmuntend begrip van het medium.

Naast het feit dat ze duidelijk moeite heeft met de inzet van de media, ontbreekt het Verdonk voornamelijk aan de fancultuur die Obama zo geholpen heeft. Doordat haar doelgroep ten eerste weinig met nieuwe media hebben, en vooral niet rond een positieve boodschap te binden was, ontstond er tot nu toe geen chemie bij de aanhangers. Obama wist dromen en hoop prachtig te vermengen met al zijn uitingen zowel offline als online. Deze framing ontbeert Verdonk. Toen Verdonk onder vuur kwam te liggen om de schandalen in haar partij waren er geen aanhangers die opstonden, zoals ze dat wel bij Obama deden. Dat Verdonk niet kan profiteren van haar brede inzet aan nieuwe media is niet alleen het gevolg van gebrek aan inzicht in media, maar vooral gebrek aan persoonlijkheid.

Tot slot
Dat nieuwe media campagnes positieve sentimenten kan versterken heeft Obama bewezen, maar het omgekeerde is ook zeker waar. Utopische manifesto’s schetsen een nieuwe wereld, maar falen er voorlopig in om de eigenschappen van die wereld te achterhalen. De digerati holt achter deze halve waarheden aan, en in plaats van een kritische analyse komen ze voorlopig nog met holle frase als ‘je moet erin geloven’. Bang om de boot te missen stortten (o.a.) politici zich in nieuwe media. Maar zoals we bij Verdonk zien, lang niet altijd met een positief effect. Ook de man die aan het hoofd van de mediastrategie van Obama stond, Scott Goodstein, erkent dat ook zij niet altijd precies wisten hoe bepaalde tactieken zouden uitpakken. Soms heb je ook een beetje geluk nodig (2009). Wie werkelijk een succesvolle nieuwe mediastrategie wil voeren zal opzoek moeten naar de werkelijke succesformules, in plaats van te berusten in halve waarheden van evangelisten.

Bibliografie

Anderson, Chris. The Long Tail: Why The Future of Business is Selling Less of More. New York: Hyperion, 2006.

BBC. Yes We Can- The Lost Art of Oratory. 2009 < http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00jt42v >opgevraagd op 15 april 2009

Blom, Erwin. Long Tail-ontkenners begrijpen het niet. 2009 < http://webwereld.nl/column/54730/long-tail-ontkenners-snappen-het-niet.html > 10 juni 2009

boyd, danah. Taken Out of Context: American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics, 2008, < http://www.danah.org/papers/TakenOutOfContext.pdf >, opgevraagd op 15 mei 2009

Castells, Manuel. The Power of Identity. (second edition) Blackwell publishing:Oxford, 2004

— Lecture: Communication Power in The Network Society. 2008 < http://webcast.oii.ox.ac.uk/?view=Webcast&ID=20081023_266>, opgevraagd op 19 maart 2009

Elberse, Anita. Should You Invest in the Long Tail? 2008 < http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2008/07/should-you-invest-in-the-long-tail/ar/1 > , opgevraagd op 10 juni 2009

Gauntlett, David. Creative Explorations: New Approaches to Identities and Audiences. London: Routledge, 2007

— Making is Connecting. 2009 < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObiWCDqAld0 >, opgevraagd op 10 juni 2009

Goodstein, Scott. The man behind Obama. 28 mei 2009 < http://www.revolutionmagazine.com/news/903724/man-behind-Obama/ >, opgevraagd op 28 mei 2009

Jenkins, Henry. Manufacturing Dissent: An Interview with Stephen Duncombe (Part One). 2007 < http://henryjenkins.org/2007/07/manufacturing_dissent_an_inter.html > opgevraagd op 10 juni 2009

— Obama: The Candidate For All Platforms. 2008a < http://henryjenkins.org/2008/11/whew_i_am_still_trying.html > opgevraagd op 10 juni 2009

— Campaigns in a Web 2.0 World. 2008b < http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/03/business/media/03media.htm > opgevraagd op 10 juni 2009

— Obama and the “We” Generation. 2008c < http://henryjenkins.org/2008/02/obama_and_the_we_generation.html > opgevraagd op 10 juni 2009

Klöpping, Alexander. Obama America’s Most Powerful Fanboy. 2009 (aanstaande)

Nieborg, David. De eerste Amerikaanse tech-president. 19 november 2008. < http://www.vn.nl/Wetenschap/ArtikelWetenschap/Obama2.0.htm > opgevraagd op 20 mei 2009

Van Dijck, José en David Nieborg. Wikinomics and its discontents: a critical analysis of Web 2.0 business manifestos, 2009 (aanstaande)

Van Jole, Francisco. Trots op Internet. 2008 < http://www.2525.com/log/archives/2008/04/trots_op_intern.html >, opgevraagd op 10 juni 2009

Eindnoten

Twitter is een typische Web 2.0-applicatie die ingelogde gebruikers in staat stelt om korte berichtjes (van maximaal 140 tekens) te delen met potentieel grote groepen lezers. De dienst is platformonafhankelijk, dus te benaderen via Twitter.com op een computer, mobiele telefoon of laptop. Als er maar een internetverbinding is. Zelf Twitter gebruiken – zogenoemde ‘tweets’ versturen – is minstens even simpel. Kwestie van een account aanmaken en typen. (Nieborg 2009)

“Op Twitter is een gebruiker, een zogehete Tweep of Twitteraar, zowel zender als ontvanger. Hij kan berichten versturen van 140 tekens. Deze berichten worden vervolgens bezorgd bij de Twitteraars die op de gebruiker geabonneerd zijn, de zogehete followees. Een Twitter gebruiker heeft invloed op beide delen van de informatiestroom, hij bepaalt zelf op wie hij zich abonneert, en dus volgt. Hij wordt een follower. Anderzijds bepaald hij wie hem mogen volgen, de followees. Een berichtje op Twitter heet een ‘tweet’. Deze berichten worden getoond op het platform van keuze, in een informatiestroom die door de gebruiker is samengesteld.” (scriptie)

Voor wie wil beginnen op Twitter, een aantal interessante accounts;

• @lancearmstrong – The Boss voert een prachtige campagne voor Livestrong. Het merk Armstrong is super krachtig, en Lance weet precies hoe hij mensen aan zich moet binden.
• @gvenkdaily een goede selectie van al het technieuws, iedere ochtend een stuk of 30 berichten
• @dijkshoorn en @therealfoksuk grappige berichten van Nico Dijkshoorn en Fokke en Sukke (Jean-Marc van Tol FS)
• @sophieintveld (politica)
• @wethink @davidgauntlett @lessig

Kixx-Online is dit jaar genomineerd voor de thuiswinkelawards, en dat stemt vrolijk. Via het gastenboek hadden we al een hoop complimenten gekregen, maar toch is het leuk om te horen dat we ook daadwerkelijk bij de top 3 horen. Een belangrijk gedeelte van het succes ligt denk ik bij de goede samenwerking tussen mij Niek ten Hoopen, en Kixx zelf. We kunnen de website continu vernieuwen, en tot nu toe is dat nog altijd succesvol geweest. Iedereen die al heeft gestemd wil ik bij deze bedanken voor de steun! (Stemmen kan nog steeds!)

Herkenbaar?