SHORTLY after 6:00 one morning I am awakened by the text message alert on my cellphone. I check. 'Rastafari Astor Black for President of the Republic Jamaica,' the message reads. Later, Black, head of the Jamaica Alliance Movement, a political party that has been contesting the polls for years without success, confirms that the message came from him.

It was a group message, much like unsolicited e-mail. He arbitrarily sends these messages to the contacts in his phone, he says. It's a cheap campaign tool.

"That's part of my marketing strategy," Black told the Sunday Observer.
"We are not big-funded like other parties," he said. Some people even respond to the messages, Black said.

But Black's Jamaica Alliance Movement (JAM) is not the only party trying to reach voters using mobile technology. In fact, if you so desire, you could hear a Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) 'not changing no course' ad every time your phone rings. The advertisements have recently been made available for download as ring tones from the party's website.

And, according to Webmaster for the Jamaica Labour Party's website, Trevor Forrest, people were already setting the ads as ring tones.
Black's one-man bulk text message campaign and the JLP ad ring tones are part of a phenomenon steadily gaining ground in local political campaigns - the use of new media.

At least four political parties have been using web technology to woo electors. The People's National Party, the JLP, Black's JAM and the NDM all have a web presence.
But now, weeks before Jamaica's 15th general election since Universal Adult Suffrage, the major web battle is brewing between the two major parties - PNP and JLP - whose websites are updated frequently with dynamic content.

But what this new medium of campaigning has also done, is given those lesser parties a chance to capitalise on what can be a free and easy medium. As a result, Black's JAM has a page on msn groups, while the NDM has a site. However, unlike on the websites of the PNP and the JLP, the content appears dated on the NDM and JAM sites.
But Black suggests there is no way to put a "time stamp" on the truth.
"The Freedom Charter will always be current," Black said, "because the Internet plays a pivotal role in global marketing. That is the only way to go."

In case you missed the PNP's mass rally Sunday night, even though the proliferation of media made sure you got it at some point, you can watch it over and over and over at www.pnpjamaica.com. You could also have caught it live on the site Sunday night.

Similarly, if you have not had enough of the JLP's 'not changing course' advertisements and all the ads the party has done since 2007, or you missed Bruce Golding's tour of your parish, or the party's mass rally in Mandeville, you can watch them again at www.jlpteam.com.
"It's really the first time that the political race has ventured into that realm," Forrest told the Sunday Observer.

And it is indeed a race. The PNP's information technology manager David White said the party's advertisements would soon be online, while the JLP's Forrest said ways to get candidates to interact more with users, through chat rooms, for example, were being explored.
The PNP's site has had more than 120,000 hits since its 2001 inception, while the new JLP site has had more than 1 million hits since its launch last November, with Forrest suggesting that "we're going to eclipse 2 million by end of month". Forrest attributes the traffic flow to aggressive online marketing.

But the PNP's White said the number of hits the party's website has enjoyed has to be put in the context of peaks at different times. When Portia Simpson Miller became party president, for example, the site enjoyed more traffic. The same thing happened around the time of the last general elections. So, he insists, "you can't look at it as [120,000] hits in five years."

You can donate to the JLP using Senvia or Paypal through their site but the PNP's electronic donation is not yet running, so for now they provide people with bank account numbers to make deposits.
You may also listen to, and see the lyrics of party songs on both sites, and according to White, that, along with Portia Simpson Miller's popularity has really taken off.

"The party songs have been a big hit," White said.
And while the JLP's site is way more glitzy than the PNP's, having gone through a number of re-dos since the last elections, both White and Forrest give one fundamental reason for having a website in the first place - reaching Jamaicans in the Diaspora.
Forrest said the plan was to change the face of the party to basically promoting hope for Jamaica.

"You will not see any radical promotion of the leader, or the candidates, it's the people, the country," Forrest said.
White also gave a greater reason for the creation of the PNP's website.

"It wasn't just a website, it was an entire strategy to get the PNP into the 21st century," White said.

And both White and Forrest are promising a lot more in the way of use of the Web in the campaign process.
"The awareness of the power of what the Internet can do for your campaign has not yet been realised," Forrest said.

Mothers can't father

Trousers in Denim

Cream of the 'Crop'