I doubt many Americans have observed or at least clicked on the candidates’ official websites. I’ve been here for nearly a month and it occurred to me that I will have the chance to be in the States and celebrate (to some people it may not be a celebration) fruits of successful democracy. What a tremendous honor! As a foreigner, I wasn’t exposed to that much American political news but now I am here and exposed to lots of campaign news. I want to know these two parties and their candidates. Therefore, I did what the candidates told voters to do —— visit their websites. Right after Clinton asked voters to look up her campaign website, Donald Trump directed voters to look his as well.(0:16-0:32) So, what about their websites?
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Do you know Republican nominees’ website do not equip users with a Spanish version? It is quite unbelievable to me, at least. There is a considerable number of people speaking Spanish as their first or second language in the United States, moreover, Spanish is the world’s second language in the international communication. It is certainly the fact that most Americans speak English; however, not providing a Spanish version of the website has to do with candidate images. Donald Trump’s utterances have already aroused several controversies regarding Hispanic Americans. By not providing a Spanish version of his website, it may make Spanish-speaking Americans feel disrespected and not cared about. No matter who had designed Clinton’s campaign website, he/she must be aware of what’s going on in campaigns. In Clinton’s official website, visitors, specifically Spanish-speaking Americans, are able to switch the language into Spanish. That is to say, the devil is in the details, and you don’t want to spoil this, especially when it is considered as one of the significant battles in American history. (Is it also telling us the importance of hiring right web designers?)
Language matters because it is pretty much the way how voters get to know you, in other words, candidates would want their voters to know them. How can people vote for you if they don’t even know who you are? I believe no candidates would want their voters to know them simply through social media, for which is sometimes leaning. In Democratic candidates’ website, the About button, visitors are able to know Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine by pictures, video clips as well as their lifelong timeline. You want to know more about Donald Trump and Mike Pence? No, you can only know background information about Donald trump on Republican nominees’ official website. It is basically “Trump’s official website,” in which you can know nothing about Mike Pence. It did make me feel that Donald Trump did not prepare himself a VP candidate for seconds.
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Official websites are public images of candidates, it significantly shapes how voters perceive you as candidates besides social media; especially when we are now in the 21st century, a cyber-cultural era. People rely on surfing on the Internet to get information. Overall speaking, I would say Clinton has won on this.
With everything going on in this debate I, like you have never thought about checking out the official websites. With all the debates and social media coverage I never even thought to look and see what was on their official websites. After reading this is shows me that Clinton is way more prepared and aware of others then Trump is. It is pretty clear to me that Trump does not have the most compassionate views on non English speaking people, especially immigrants, but like you said most Americans speak another language and English might not be there dominant language. I think it is important to have translated versions of their websites, Spanish yes but even other languages as well. Everybody has the right to see what their presidential candidates have to say.
ReplyDeleteAs for the second part of your post I find that to be even more interesting then the language barrier. When learning about these people we want to know everything, i mean one of these candidates is going to be the new leader of our country. If the official website of Trump doesn't tell us anything about his timeline or have video clips, and nothing about Mike Pence. If he really wants to be the next presidential, he as well as his team need to be more prepared and give up some more information.
There are three types of voters: those who will vote for you even if you get caught on tape demeaning women, those who would not vote for you even if the other candidate died, and those in the middle who can be persuaded. When a political campaign is deciding how to allocate funds, they target their efforts on the last category.
ReplyDeleteSo it is quite believable to me that the Trump campaign is not reaching out to voters who speak Spanish as their first or second language. It is an indication that they put that demographic in the second category and not the third.