Obama goes High-tech

"US Democratic candidate Barack Obama is set to turn the iPhone into a political recruiting tool with an application aimed at getting the vote out." BBC News, 2008.

To be able to get good votes, you need to know what are the citizens had in their minds. Of course the emergence of iPhones frenzy is the current 'it' thing and that is exactly what Obama is aiming for. A really smart move, in my opinion. This free application "Call Friends" is for the citizens to join and later on votes for Obama. Registered members will also get feeds on the current updates of Obama's campaign and happenings. (BBC News, 2008)

Source: http://twotrees.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/barack-obama.jpg

Source: http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/iphone

Rather than going around the country giving political and self-promoting speeches, its seems like Obama has used a more conventional way. Making use of the new media, in this case, iPhone has a lot of advantages. Apart from saving energy to travel to far places, it also saves time as a call is always a click a way. Internet plays such an important role now that it even helps to determine who is the country's president!

The question is, how many audiences can he reach so far with an iPhone application?
In order to get a selected bunch of target audiences, we need to understand the steps get to them. Audience, Context and Purpose is needed to be determined to deliver a message.

• Audience: who are the audience?
  It refers to the people who will look at your text (skwirk.com, 2009)
  In this case, it is the citizen of United States.
  
  
• Purpose: what are you trying to accomplish?
  It refers to the purpose of what you are writing on (skwirk.com, 2009)
  Obama is promoting himself via the iPhone to get votes for his election.

• Context: what are the elements in your text?
  Since this is a political promotion, Obama will use politic terms as well as publishing his works on helping out the nation.

Based on this choice of promotion, interactivity comes in hand as an iPhone is a phone after all. Getting in touch and connected through the net via iPhone not only helps to promote himself but also for him to get closer to the nation in terms of social preferences.



References:
Shiels, M. 2008, Obama uses iPhone to win support, BBC News Technology, viewed on 18 November 2009, on http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7649753.stm

"Purpose, audience, ideology and positioning", Skwirk Interactive Schooling, viewed on 18 November 2009, on http://www.skwirk.com.au/p-c_s-54_u-247_t-641_c-2382/purpose-audience-ideology-positioning/nsw/purpose-audience-ideology-positioning/skills-by-mode-viewing-and-representing/required-skills-and-knowledge-concept