More than in any other election, the internet is becoming a viable source for candidates to promote themselves. Like in previous years, candidates have their own websites where supporters can follow their every step and even join their "team" to help advertise. Since the last election however, new websites such as Youtube and Myspace have developed large user bases and the candidates have taken notice.
On Youtube, a channel with the banner, "You Choose '08" was created which allows for candidates to feature their own videos so that anyone with an internet connection, can educate themselves on the upcoming election.
And if watching videos is not to your liking, many candidates have Myspace pages. On Myspace's newly opened presidential section, you can view the Myspaces of many of the candidates running in 2008.
With the internet playing such a large role in this next election, I think that 2008 will mark the year of where and how elections will be won. Heck, at least this year although I may not know many of the issues, at least I'll know Senator Barack Obama is a Leo.
- J
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7 comments:
yep, the internet is becoming a nice proving ground for archaic political candidates. but you know what though? i can see possible alienation within this area. say like facebook, people want to add their favorite candidate as a friend, but with the mass amount of requests it will take time for a person to be added, even not added all-together due to the sheer volume of request. moreover, since candidates are more "closely" connected with voters, every slight move could result in unwanted consequences. it will be interesting to see how much further candidates will do to reach the voter. maybe they will even give away their screennames! too bad those aim punter don't work anymore. (for those of you don't know, a long long time ago (a decade), you could used to use an aim "punter" to kick fellow buddies offline, haha.
Good point, with the amount of friends that each candidate is bound to face, it may take time for each friend to get added. Although with myspace, and their bulletin function, it may be easier for candidates to communicate with each of their "friends".
ah but you still need to remember, candidates are likely to get at max a few hundred thousand "friends" on their social site. they will primarily comprise of younger voters who may not even be interested in politics, but just trying to fill their list. so even though a candidate may seem to be popular with younger voters, it may not reflect the numbers at the poll on election day. voters turn out for national election is usually at a sub-par average of roughly 50% (mostly adults 30 years of age and older in turnouts).
Just an fyi, there will also be portals built atop engines like YouTube. Here's mine...
www.ExpertVoter.org
It give viewers a simple one-page website that allows candidates be be compared on various key issues. I've looked at YouChoose and such and to me, it's just an extension of political commercials. This is a way of bring order to it all.
gary
I don't think branching out to the internets is going to be an easy thing for candidates to get mileage out of. Remember, internets users are usually very young folks with fuses as short as their egos are massive. The most activism you'll see out of most of them is a heated message board debate.
Only a very small percentage of voters read blogs anyway.
Personally, I think the biggest thing the internets provide is accountability. Everything a candidate says or does can be dug up through. Did any of you know Jimmy Carter's first ticket for public office was on a strict segregationist platform (Mostly pandering)? With the internet, we'd have a much easier time digging stuff like this up.
So, in essence, it can enhance the long tradition of election smears.
I don't really think places like Myspace will have much of an effect at all. Young people just don't show up at the polls. The liberal entertainment industry took a page from the conservatives book and tried to use fear to motivate young people (Vote or Die) but that really didn't work either. Young people are just not interested in politics.
"Personally, I think the biggest thing the internets provide is accountability. Everything a candidate says or does can be dug up through. Did any of you know Jimmy Carter's first ticket for public office was on a strict segregationist platform (Mostly pandering)? With the internet, we'd have a much easier time digging stuff like this up."
Well said. I was just having a discussion in class about this very topic. People today, are going to be held more accountable for their actions because of the Internet. Look at what happened to Don Imus.
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