• by Mike Bloxham , Op-Ed Contributor, February 6, 2008

Like millions of others, I spent much of last night in front of the TV following the events of Super Tuesday as they unfolded (or at least as they were speculated on prior to unfolding).

My particular choice of mediator was BBC America, accompanied by my trusty laptop and the rather wonderful Google Maps application that tied in Twitter and Twittervision to graphically represent what was going on around the country and provide a means for people to comment on what they saw taking place.

Aside from making things easier to track, this combination of media experiences reinforced the extent to which this election is already so different from any other that has gone before.

It's easy to lose sight of the extent to which the developments in our media lives that many of us now take for granted have actually only emerged and truly gained traction since the last presidential election.

Just a few years ago, social networks like Facebook and MySpace were nothing compared to their current size, profile and general sophistication. Even a cursory search of Facebook throws up over 500 groups for the election and the same again for each of the major candidates (Facebook only lists them as 500+). Similarly, a search for applications within Facebook using the keywords  "election," "clinton" and "obama" returned a total of 75-100 applications. What this means for the engagement of a younger demographic into the political process remains to be seen, but the CNN/YouTube debate provides another potential indication and is further evidence of the changes that media and technology are bringing to the electoral process.

Streaming video was also taking place at a much lower level four years ago, due to commensurately lower levels of bandwidth penetration, computers that could handle it and the sites that had adopted it. YouTube didn't exist and the major media owners like CNN, NBC, CBS et al were not into streaming at all. Yet today, according to a study released this week by Solutions Research Group, 43% of the U.S. online population -- circa 80 million people -- have viewed a prime-time TV show online. No doubt some have viewed some of the political coverage online, too.

Blogs had already existed for some time, but it would be wrong to say they had really entered the mainstream four years ago. Many news outlets were either blissfully unaware of them, had dismissed them as irrelevant, or were actively discouraging them.

I couldn't have used the Google Maps application I so enjoyed last night, as Google Maps itself had not been launched.

And then there is viral marketing -- which, though it may have existed then, was again not as sophisticated and, for the reasons stated above, not so video-oriented as it is now. The instantly famous "Yes We Can" video based on the Obama speech that racked up over 12 million views in less than 48 hours could never have had a comparable impact four years ago.

Although political campaigns had started to use the Web, it was principally for fundraising (Howard Dean) and marshalling the faithful. They certainly weren't reaching out to the numbers that this year's candidates are, nor were their efforts nearly as sophisticated.

All of this leaves aside the explosion in the number and type of devices I can now use to follow the election, whether in video format or not -- from the iPod through the iPhone, mobile phones and the ever-multiplying array of place-based media, political news junkie need never be without their fix.

But there's more to this than simply an explosion of media outlets. As with all other forms of distributed content, the array of interactive applications and functionalities that are now available to us on one or many platforms enables a deeper dialogue between candidates and voters, as well as among voters themselves (ref the Facebook groups as just one example).

How this will ultimately affect the democratic process remains to be seen. But one thing is for sure. From the crafting of messages (by official and unofficial sources), through the distribution and receipt of (and response to) those messages, this election will have a media presence that is more complex, multidimensional and pervasive than any before.

I wonder: To what extent will that continue when the new resident takes up his or her position in the Oval Office?