News Regarding the Center
Obama's Smart Call: Seeking Cell Phone Numbers
San Francisco Chronicle
August 23, 2008
Obamamaniacs breathlessly awaiting a text message with their candidate's vice presidential choice might not realize it, but the shiny bait of
being among the first to know lured them into handing over something of real value: their cell phone numbers. Those numbers don't appear in the
white pages, and strict laws protect them from the dreaded robo-dialer.
But Barack Obama's campaign has spent the past week collecting legions of numbers submitted by potential voters enticed by the prospect of
being in the know. . . Obama's use of text messages could be a political benchmark like Howard Dean's use of the Internet as an organizing tool. . .
The immediate effect is to make people feel they are personally involved in the vice presidential choice, said James Katz, director of the Center
for Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers University.
"This notion that there is sort of a mystery and the mystery is going to be revealed ... is capturing some of that magic to get people involved in a very personal way," Katz said.
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