John Allen Hendricks is a professor whose research focuses on political communication, social media/new media technologies, and the broadcasting industry and is the author of more than ten books on the subjects.
[3] His book, Communicator-in-Chief: How Barack Obama Used New Media Technology to Win the White House (co-edited with Robert E. Denton Jr. of Virginia Tech),[4][5][6] was one of the first scholarly examinations of the historical role new media technologies played in the historic 2008 American presidential election, and it received the National Communication Association’s Applied Research Division's 2011 Distinguished Edited Book Award.
[7][8] Communicator-in-Chief examined the Obama campaign's innovative uses of social media/new media technologies including Twitter, smartphones, blogging, YouTube and viral videos, and campaign advertisements strategically placed in video games to reach Millennial voters.
[9][10][11] After the 2012 presidential election, Hendricks's book Presidential Campaigning and Social Media: An Analysis of the 2012 Election (co-edited with Dan Schill of James Madison University) examines the rapidly growing influence of social media in American politics.
The book examines the campaign issues, media coverage, late-night comedy shows, technology, and advertising strategies in that year's mid-term election.