Vote for Help Virally

Obama '08 - Vote For Hope from MC Yogi on Vimeo.

Never in our lifetime have we seen one man garner so much support and positivity. When Barack Obama ran for President he motivated people from all walks of life, and even stimulated a dormant youth population that hadn’t had much to be excited about the past few years. During his campaign, Obama supporters went to new heights in expressing their support, and equally, his message. The internet became the center of the spread of information. Within weeks, a majority of the nation, especially the digitally attuned, was well aware of the race, and became an essential cog in the Obama machine. The speed in which support for Obama increased can be attributed to mass marketing through the use of viral video. This example is also closely related to collective intelligence. Through CI we can see that we exist in a network society, that we are all interconnected with one another, therefore the stream and spread of information is exponentially increased. The spread of this video was huge, and through collective intelligence, this video, and many others like it were the fuel that pumped Obama to victory. The sheer amount of people sharing and exchanging information so rapidly, exemplifies our network society. Furthermore, the ability to spread the information to all parts of the world shows how electric mass communication means such as the internet define both how we live in a network society, and that collective intelligence directly contributes to quick and widespread information.

-Ramin Rezvani