- Politics, politics, politics: The first presidential debate last week provided lots of good reading fodder:
- Presidential body language – The New York Times broke down the meaning behind each candidates’ gestures. “After the first televised presidential debate, held between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon 52 years ago, campaigns have been acutely aware that voters may judge candidates in such encounters as much by their appearance and gestures as by their words.”
- Fact-checking the debate – There were many fact-checking versions done around the debate, including this one from PolitiFact.
- PBS and Big Bird – Even if you didn’t watch the debate, you couldn’t escape the discussion around the mention of PBS and Big Bird. PBS’ official response statement is a useful example of organizational communication in a heated national context.
- Record-setting night for Twitter – With more than 10 million tweets, the debate last week was “the most tweeted-about event in U.S. politics.”
- Errant KitchenAid tweet – By now we’ve seen a number of examples of errant tweets being sent from corporate accounts, but the latest was KitchenAid’s errant tweet during last week’s debate.
- Campaigns and social media – This year’s presidential campaigns are going beyond the groundwork set in 2008 and trying a wide variety of social media strategies and tactics to reach and engage voters (particularly younger ones).
- Civility and politics in America: Not specifically tied to the debate, but Weber Shandwick released its third annual survey, “Civility in America.” Among other things, the survey found that “83% [of people surveyed] say a candidate’s tone or level of civility will be an important factor in the 2012 presidential election,” and “63% believe we have a major civility problem in America.”
- FTC Green Guides: The FTC issued the final version of its “Green Guides,” which aims to bring more accountability and clarity to environmental claims in advertising. The FTC’s summary is a helpful synopsis.
- Facebook hits one billion: Facebook passed the one billion user mark last week and released its first television ad.
Tag Archive for: politics
- Politics & social media: The Pew Internet and American Life Project released a new report last week, “Politics on Social Networking Sites.” The survey noted, “The vast majority of SNS users (84%) say they have posted little or nothing related to politics in their recent status updates, comments, and links.” And a fairly small number of people said their political views had changed as a result of political activity on social networking sites. Only “16% of SNS users say they have changed their views about a political issue after discussing it or reading posts about it on the sites.”
- Future of media: The Columbia Journalism Review’s “Special report: the future of media” provides interesting fodder on “the long view” of the future of media.
- Wikipedia and PR: This month’s edition of the CW Bulletin (a monthly e-newsletter) from IABC, “PR and Wikipedia: Building a better relationship,” dives into the issues and current topics around the relationship between communicators and the world’s largest encyclopedia. There are feature articles on ethics, strategy and engagement, as well as additional column articles and case studies. For a complementary view on the challenges people sometimes face in updating incorrect or outdated information on Wikipedia, read the novelist and author Philip Roth’s “An Open Letter to Wikipedia” from the New Yorker last week. (Note that the Wikipedia entry for Roth’s The Human Stain has since been changed and is now correct.)
- Corporate social media management: Jeremiah Owyang has published a helpful series of blog posts over the last few weeks on the internal structures and management of social media at large corporations: “Breakdown: Social Media Workflow, Process, Triage,” “Breakdown: Converged Media Workflow (Coordinating Paid + Owned + Earned),” and “Breakdown: Corporate Social Media Team.”
We hope everyone enjoyed the long holiday weekend here in the U.S. Now back to our usual schedule.
- Trust and the media: A recent study found that even though trust in media institutions has been falling, most people would still rather get their news from professional journalists. From Poynter‘s story on the study: “More than 60 percent of U.S. adults say they “prefer news stories produced by professional journalists,” and more than 70 percent agree that “professional journalists play an important role in our society,” according to new survey data from the Reynolds Journalism Institute.” The full survey also looked at the role of mobile technologies on news and views on media consumption.
- Social technologies and business value: The McKinsey Global Institute issued an interesting research report in July, “The social economy: Unlocking value and productivity through social technologies.” The report “explores [the technologies’] potential economic impact by examining their current usage and evolving application in four commercial sectors: consumer packaged goods, retail financial services, advanced manufacturing, and professional services. These technologies, which create value by improving productivity across the value chain, could potentially contribute $900 billion to $1.3 trillion in annual value across the four sectors.” In essence, the research found that although the majority of companies are using social media in some capacity, “very few are anywhere near to achieving the full potential benefit.” (report via Shel Holtz)
- President Obama and Reddit: The President participated in an “Ask Me Anything” (or AMA) forum on the social site Reddit last week, notable as a new presidential social media tactic. The Nieman Journalism Lab has a good round-up of opinions on the tactic, and David Carr at the New York Times has some background on Reddit, for those not familiar with the site.