IOP Director Trey Grayson recently hosted an interactive roundtable discussion in Washington DC joining hands with the Internet Association, analyzing “The Midterm Election & The Digital Policy Agenda” on political campaigns, technology and legislative policy.
IOP Director Trey Grayson recently hosted an interactive roundtable discussion in Washington DC joining hands with the Internet Association, analyzing “The Midterm Election & The Digital Policy Agenda” on political campaigns, technology and legislative policy. The discussion was attended by dozens of representatives from a wide array of news organizations, public opinion and strategy firms and internet companies. The event comprised of 2 sessions on World technology and politics: “Campaign 2014: How technology is Transforming Elections” and “Privacy, Patents and Innovation: Congress and the Midterms”. The video of this page is available in YouTube. The first session was on Campaign 2014 and it delved into the all-encompassing role that technology is playing in how people receive information and what that means for the campaigns that are courting votes. Check out the few takeaways of this event.
1.Live TV still rules but it’s losing ground to new technologies
According to a new poll from Public Opinion Strategies, reaching out to the younger generation is not as simple as it used to be years ago. The poll found out that although 70% of the population are still watching live television, those who are streaming video content on devices like Apple, Roku and Chromecast, has increased from 17% - 27% over the last 2 years. On the other hand, those getting content on smartphones and tablets also increased from 16-27% and from 14-26% respectively. The poll also showed that the respondents are also watching more non-live television than live television. So, if the campaigns want to reach out to the younger voters, they can’t merely run ads on live television and therefore they need to diversify their communication channels.
2. Young voters are volunteering in greater numbers than voting
IOP Polling Director John Della Volpe leads a 14 year old study of the political beliefs of Millennials and he is the one who noted that in the previous two presidential election cycles, they had no more participation by younger voters as against voters over the age of 65. He also noted that 20% of all voters in the next cycle will be under the age of 30. The polarising nature of the city, Washington D.C. is gradually turning the young people off from politics but their volunteerism remains strong. Since the young people rely deeply on new technologies, it’s crucial to connect world technology not only to political campaigns but also to the government if they want to engage more and more youth into public service.
3. Polling in 2016 and beyond that
Della Volpe also noted that picking up the phone at home and engaging in a 30-minute conversation with a pollster on a serious policy matter was an accepted practice decades ago but now this is completely considered as an “unnatural act”. Although there are still some pollsters who attempt to operate in this way, little do they know that world technology has changed the expectations of the world. Landline, cell phone and internet polling options should be explored in the current political environment and a greater focus should be paid to reach out to Hispanic voters. Della Volpe says that pollsters at all levels of campaigns will use a “blender” of data like the Obama presidential campaign.
US Senator’s digital director, Lauren Miller noted that though digital technologies might have become a priority for presidential and statewide races, congressional campaigns are still technologically more challenged as majority of them don’t have an assigned person to focus on digital strategy. In fact a big challenge for 2014 and 2016 campaign is being able to employ groundbreaking technological innovations to reach out to voters in races on a smaller scale.