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Electronic Electorate: How Does the Internet Change This Election?

Electronic Electorate: How Does the Internet Change This Election?

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Electronic Electorate: How Does the Internet Change This Election?

Think MTV - Street Team 08
Wednesday, March 26, 2008

I am friends with Barack Obama. In fact, I’m buddies with Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Dennis Kucinich, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Mike Gravel, George Clooney, and Angelina Jolie (psst… don’t tell Brad). How have I become so popular in only 3 months as a Choose or Lose Street Team Reporter? The magic of social networking. Am I really friends with these people? I’m friends with their PR department, I guess, since I have agreed to be their “friend” in the think.mtv.com community. But in a way this changes the game of politics.

Think how radically different campaigning can be now: Politicians can go to young people where they are and have a basically unlimited space to show them their platform and ideas. They can obtain demographic data about what kinds of people support their campaign with relative ease from these sites. And they can have a dialogue, sending and receiving messages as they please.

Television doesn’t allow it. Neither does radio. As a matter of fact, no medium, except possibly the video game, allows for the interactivity that is allowed by the Internet. So how will this change the election? Facebook, MySpace, and many other sites were not the powerhouse they are now during the 2004 election. And what candidate is doing the best job of harnessing this magical new medium? That candidate may find him- or herself on top. So let’s look at how the major candidates are using several sites. And for fun I’ll look at Ron Paul, too. This is in no way a scientific study, but more of a fun look at how the candidates are using online media. The numbers I have are from March 21, 2008, before 10am.

Filed under: anthony wojtkowiak Think MTV Street Team 2008