So Barack Obama has won what seems like the slowest race in history to become the 44th President of the United States. Apparently, he’s achieved this through a combination of visionary politics, an appetite for change and - most significantly for us technology PR geeks - a rather savvy online PR campaign.

For the first time in US politics, the battle to become president has been contested over the internet, with both sides of the political divide using persuasive social networking techniques to reach their target audiences.  Alongside myriad supportive blogs and website posts, Obama boasts 2.3 million ‘friends’ on Facebook, a well-subscribed MySpace page, a Twitter profile and a YouTube account where videos (both silly and serious) have generated 97 million views….

In the run-up to the election, it was heavily debated as to whether it would indeed ever be possible for someone like Barack Obama to win the hearts and minds of Middle America and emerge victorious. A considerable part of this has to be due to the partisan views of the politically-biased media corporations in charge of disseminating information to the US masses - the persuasive influence of the Fox News Channel, for example, is difficult to ignore.

By channelling his messages through internet resources, in addition to traditions means, Obama gave voters the chance to make up their own minds - achieving his success through consensus, rather than the usual methods of mass indoctrination - surely the desired result of any well-targeted PR campaign. Hopefully this is a good indication that the American people have made the right choice.

Can PR really change the world? We’ll all have to keep a close eye on the White House in the coming months to find out…

Emma Sinclair