major obstacle to participatory democracy and election reform. Social media in modern campaigns Social media has dramatically changed the way in which modern political campaigns are run. With younger and more tech-savvy citizens entering into the voting population, social media are the platforms on which the politicians need to establish themselves and engage with the public. In years to come, social media is anticipated to overtake traditional media in terms of importance to political campaigns. For example, in Australia 86% of Australians access the Internet, and with a 17,048,864 voting age population (according to IDEA), around 14,662,023 voting population has access to Internet, and 65% of them use social media, which means 9,530,314 Australian voters use social media (The 2013 Yellow™ Social Media Report found that among internet users 65% of Australians use social media, up from 62% last year). The implication of this for political consulting is that social media are the channels through which an increasingly larger portion of the population receives political messages. As a consequence, unless a political consultant addresses the part of the electorate which can preferentially be reached through social media, the portion of the electorate which will be reached through traditional communication technologies will increasingly shrink in the future. For instance, social media is already the main source of information for 26% of young voters in Spain. Trade organizations The American Association of Political Consultants is the major trade association for political consultants in the United States, with thousands of members. Like other professional organizations, it propagates a code of ethics and gives out awards. Similar organizations for political consultants exist for many other countries and regions. See also Campaign manager Campaigns & Elections, a trade magazine covering political consulting Just How Stupid Are We? Political campaign staff References Further reading Sabato, Larry J. The Rise of Political Consultants. New York: Basic Books, 1981. xvi, 376 p. Wesslau, Fredrik. The Political Adviser's Handbook 2013, External links