The 2008 Presidential elections in The United States of America have experienced one of the highest voting rates in its history. It was measured that the sum of votes for all candidates exceeded 131 million which in other words means that 63% of eligible voters in the whole United States came to the polls. (Leip, 2008) This turnout is the highest since 1960. Certainly, 2008 elections were very important for the both international and domestic politics, but all the same were elections in 2004. Why then as high percentage of people participated in the elections?
There can be many factors influencing people’s attitude towards voting. One of them might also have been “5 friends” vote Public Service Announcement videos. In partnership with Google, YouTube, Declare Yourself, and MySpace, Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way production company created two clips in which celebrities encourage people to vote. (binside.typepad.com) The first clip was published / put online on October 1st, 2008. (Vena, October 29, 2008) The video features actors as well as comedians and singers who initially claim that voting is nonsense and that people should not vote because they cannot influence anything. During the video, celebrities change their opinion and after naming issues of interest for which ordinary people should care, they urge the viewers to register for voting. Consequently, a website for registering is shown and in the end of the spot, celebrities encourage viewers to send their video to 5 other people who did not register yet. It is claimed that “5 Friends” video has been viewed more than 5 million times. Moreover, “major voter-registration sites have reported that more than 300,000 new voters registered due to the video alone.” (Vena, October 29, 2008)
After the success of the first video, another one was published almost a month later, on October 29, 2008. The flow of the second spot is similar to the first one and together with celebrities it shows ordinary people who present their reason for voting in the Presidential Election of 2008.
The PSAs, published on the internet and created by celebrities in order to raise the number of people participating in the elections, were undoubtedly influential. In this case, celebrity influence was direct, wanted and helpful.
Reference list:
Leip,D. (2008). Results. Election 2008. Retrieved January 5, 2008, from http://uselectionatlas.org/2008.php
5 More friends uncensored Hollywood declares themselves don’t vote PSAvideo part 2. (2008) Binside TV. Retrieved December 3, 2008, from http://binside.typepad.com/binside_tv/2008/10/hollywood-decla.html
Vena, J. (October 1, 2008) Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Aniston, Jamie Foxx, Usher, many more urge people to vote in ‘5 Friends’ video. MTV. Retrieved December 3, 2008, from http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1596077/20081001/usher.jhtml
Vena, J. (October 29, 2008) Leonardo DiCaprio, Justin Timberlake, Usher, more encourage voting with ‘5 More Friends’ video. MTV. Retrieved December 3, 2008, from http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1598154/20081029/timberlake_justin.jhtml
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Victoria, I agree with your point that celebrities have a large influence on people, which is thanks to the media. This 'gift' should be used for charity reasons mostly, because celebrities can really make a change as you mentioned in your posting but unfortunatelly sometimes the influence is negative as I read further in your blog.
ReplyDeleteThe blog is full of interesting points and videos, discussed fairly. GOOD JOB :)
Dear Victoria, I really enjoyed reading your blog. You made number of interesting comments. I especially like the article about celebrities' influence on young people during the US elections. Celebrities definitely realize how much power they have and once in a while use it for a right cause. No one could persuade so many young people to register and vote so effectively. I hope to see more projects like this in the future.
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