Barack Obama's New Media Director discussed the lessons learned from the US presidential campaign at a distinguished lecture in Cambridge this week.
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Barack Obama’s New Media Director discussed the lessons learned from the US presidential campaign at a distinguished lecture in Cambridge this week.
As the UK prepares for a general election in which new media is expected to play a key role for the first time, Joe Rospars discussed his experiences on the US presidential campaign at one of this term’s Gates Scholars’ Distinguished Lectures on 8th March.
Obama’s online strategy was widely thought to have swung the election for him and politicians around the world have been keen to find out how it worked.
Rospars oversaw all online aspects of the unprecedented communications and grassroots mobilisation effort, which integrated design and branding, web and video content, mass email, text messaging, and online advertising, organising and fundraising.
In his lecture, Lessons from the Obama Campaign: Making the Obama Digital Model Work Beyond Politics, Rospars talked about how Obama’s digital model can be applied across various sectors beyond politics – such as non-governmental organisations, charities, organised labour, academic institutions, arts and cultural organisations, consumer brands and media properties.
Rospars, who has a political science degree from George Washington University, is a founding partner of new media company Blue State Digital. Prior to the Obama campaign, he worked with Governor Howard Dean, who was chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2005 to 2009. Rospars was also a writer and strategist in New Media for Dean’s unsuccessful 2004 Presidential campaign.
