Use of social media in political campaign : the case study of the Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign

This thesis deals with the role of social media in the U.S. presidential campaign. Media plays an important role in the U.S. presidential campaign. Therefore every new medium comes with a huge expectation on its impact on the political campaign. Thus, we examine the question: What role do social media play in U.S. presidential campaigns? The role of social media is examined in the case study of the Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. The first chapter defines social media and the platform on which they run - Web 2.0. It also presents the most important aspects of social media. The following chapter presents a theoretical background on social media in politics, with focus on aspects that are relevant to the social media and their role in the political campaign. The third chapter is the case study of Barack Obama's campaign. At the outset the case study presents data on the media usage in the 2008 election; thereafter the most important social media used in Obama's campaign are analyzed. The first analysis is of Obama's official website MyBarackObama. Next to be analyzes is YouTube. Following that, social networks, primarily Facebook, are analyzed. The last chapter of this case study is devoted to blogs