“…However, it was the 2008 US elections, and specifically Barak Obama’s successful use of the Internet and social media (Johnson & Perlmutter, 2010; Lilleker & Jackson, 2010) that positioned online social networks as the main election campaign platform and caused scholars to assert that political campaigns are moving toward a Web 2.0 campaigning phase. This Web 2.0 campaigning era is characterized by sophisticated campaign tools that are used for “informing, targeting advertising, recruiting, engaging, and fundraising” (Spyridou & Veglis, 2011, p. 138), particularly via online social networking activities (Spyridou & Veglis, 2011; Strandberg, 2013). This represents a shift from traditional Web 1.0 technologies, where the web was used mainly as a publishing medium on static websites and a one-way communications platform (Carlson & Strandberg, 2008; Strandberg, 2013).…”