Sniffing Out a Voter

     In the past few decades, candidates' campaigns have become much more specialized and strategic in their quest to appeal to, and to find voters.
     In the 1950s and 1960s, television was the only game in town.  And this game only included three networks.  Hence, campaigns' broadcast strategies focused almost all of their advertising dollars on buying air time linked to popular news and entertainment programs.  Candidates, focusing on broad ideas and messages, were attempting to reach the masses through the use of advertising on the three major networks.  It was a simpler strategy for a simpler time.
      Things began changing though in the 1960s and 1970s with the advent of cable television.  This led to narrowcasting whereby campaigns were able to buy air time on cable television programs and reach a slightly more targeted demographic.  But their messages no longer had to be so generic.  Now they were focusing on more specific groups and could hone their messages to fit the audience that was watching a more specialized cable television program.  The target audience the candidates were reaching for was no longer in the millions, but the hundreds of thousands.  By having a smaller, and more targeted audience, the candidates were able to be more specific with their messages which led to more acrimonious and sensationalistic advertising.  Does anyone remember the despicable Willie Horton ads that Bush 41 ran? 
     With the advent of the internet, the 1990s and 2000s ushered in an age whereby candidates could now focus their advertising dollars on ads linked to websites search engines.  Microcasting had been born.  With this new change, campaigns were attempting to reach a smaller and more refined demographic of tens of thousands of citizens.  This honing in on your specific target audience allowed the heated rhetoric and campaign assassinations to get into full swing. 
     But today, candidates have the opportunity to reach an even smaller, more targeted demographic thanks to the rise in social media.  This is called nanocasting.  Now candidates' ads can target more refined demographic audiences, down to a single voter.  I myself was targeted by the Obama campaign in 2012. 
    One day last year I opened up the FaceBook app on my iPad and there was a message from President Obama's campaign team.  It listed the friends I had in my friends list that lived in states that allowed early voting.  The message asked me to remind my friends to vote early, and of course for President Obama.  Given the new digital age in which we live, with citizens already worried about the NSA and what information they are tracking, I must say I find this type of advertising or outreach more than a little unsettling.  It makes me feel that my own little sphere of private space is slowly but surely continually being chipped away.  However, it is an ingenious way to reach out to voters that are within your desired demographic. 
     So what's next for campaign advertising?  How much more refined can their outreach programs become?  Do we have any space left which we can call our own?  Certainly, with the advancements in technology, we have the potential to become much more informed citizens and voters.  But are we losing our personal space along the way?