Obama's Web Presence

Every once in a while I will visit ThinkProgress.org, a blog that I find to be quite good when it comes to topics dealing with environmental issues especially.  While sitting at the library computers, I typed in the web address to take a quick break from my work.  I made an error, and typed ThinkProgress.com rather than ending it with "org".  To my surprise, a massive Obama 2012 ad popped up in the window. (Check it out for yourself).  I'm not sure if Obama's online campaigning team purposely bought the web address to catch any liberals making typing errors like me, but its significance can't be ignored.  Last week we discussed the impacts of the internet on voting habits.  Obama's clear web presence of this one address alone will certainly rake in a few bucks here and there in the upcoming months before the election.  It's pretty extraordinary to think that one minor typing mistake can bring you one click away from donating to a presidential candidate.  I have a feeling that this will be the theme of Obama's campaign strategy, and I bet it's going to be extremely effective.  I remember listening to a piece on NPR about how much Obama is spending on even newer technologies to make fundraising that much easier.  I looked up the article on Obama's digital campaign and found,

 "Another clue to the Obama campaign's strategy this year is a few payments it made to a small tech company called Square, for a 1-inch-square credit card reader that works on iPhones and iPads.  The Obama campaign says after trying out Square last quarter, it's buying hundreds of them this year, vastly reducing the time, money and effort it takes to raise and process donations — and potentially turning every volunteer into a digital fundraiser".

This is the future of online campaigning, and like our readings suggested, it seems as though technology will continue to become an ever-increasing part of the political process.

Blurring the Lines of the Public vs. the Market Audience

The image above is provided by the liberal blog ThinkProgress and the short, cranky article that dissects it can be found here. If you're not familiar with the Treyvon Martin story, the confirmed facts of the case be found here. In a nutshell, a 17 year-old, unarmed African American boy was shot by 28 year-old white man named George Zimmerman. So far, Zimmerman's motive is unclear, but a 911 recorded conversation just before the shooting revealed that Zimmerman followed him unnecessarily and reported that Martin looked "like he's up to no good, on drugs or something." Martin had no criminal record to date.

Above, ThinkProgress charts the amount of news coverage each of the three major news networks allotted to this story. To only report on the development of this story once is uhm, outrageous. Here, the liberal blog Wonkette eviscerates Fox News for their negligence, so if you're into that sort of thing, you'll enjoy their take down of the outlet they describe as a "steady stream of artlessly jingoistic vomit, spewing forth from helmet-headed hairspray sacks who move their lips while reading important reports on hurricanes and other outrages against Heartland (= white, irrespective of actual location) America." But it's easy to pick on Fox News.

Instead, I'd like to ask whether Fox News' decision to neglect this story reflects their view of their audience as a public or a market. Usually, stories of senseless violence are the sort of thing the public audience thinks it deserves to know about. Coupled with the issue of race, the Martin story is definitely the stuff of evening prime time news. Why did Fox ignore it? Were they worried about offending members of their white audience who sympathize with Zimmerman's fear of blacks? It strikes me that Fox could have still reported the story and weighed in on the issue by coming to the defense of Zimmerman. What's going on here?