Time magazine on Wednesday named recently re-elected US President Barack Obama as its person of the year for 2012 - the second time it has accorded him the accolade.

With re-election as the first black president of the United States and a Nobel Peace Prize under his belt, Obama beat favored runners-up in the magazine poll, including Pakistani girls' rights activist Malala Yousafzai, to be enshrined again as Time's dominant personality of the year.

US President Barack Obama on the cover of Time after being named its Person of the Year on Wednesday. [Photo/Agencies]

"We are in the midst of historic cultural and demographic changes, and Obama is both the symbol and in some ways the architect of this new America," Time Editor Rick Stengel told US television network NBC when he announced the selection on Wednesday.

The magazine praised Obama's campaigning prowess, noting he was the first president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt to win more than 50 percent of the vote in two straight elections and the first president since 1940 to be re-elected despite a jobless rate above 7.5 percent.

Obama beat Republican challenger Mitt Romney soundly in November's election to win a second term, despite presiding over a chronic economic slump.

"In 2012, he found and forged a new majority, turned weakness into opportunity and sought, amid great adversity, to create a more perfect union," said Time, which had named Obama person of the year in 2008 when he won his historic first presidential election.

Perhaps the most poignant alternative to Obama on Time's shortlist was Yousafzai, the 14-year-old Pakistani girl who continued to campaign for the right to education after being shot and nearly killed by the Taliban.

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