Commentary here from CNN.com on how Senator Obama’s online presence dominates over Senator McCain
Things I’ve seen online related to the election:
- You can subscribe to shared items from the Obama and McCain campaigns via Google Reader
- You can subscribe to podcast feeds from the party conventions and from the campaign trail of each candidate
- You can pick up badges, icons, etc to post on your blog or other web space promoting your chosen candidate
- You can friend your candidate on Facebook, MySpace, etc.
- You can follow Barack Obama via Twitter. (I could not locate what appeared to be a John McCain Twitter account)
- …and many more
I think that it is obvious that the reason that so many young people are becoming more active during this election period is because of the internet and the extreme availability of information. 4 years ago, we were not hearing Wolf Blitzer say “blogosphere” and now it’s a cable news buzzword. The news media is putting real stock in bloggers and what they are talking about, as they should, bloggers are everywhere and their voices are being heard (or read, rather).
It’s an exciting time to be paying attention to what is happening online, during the next election this will all be expected and those running the campaigns will have to embrace more new ways to reach the voting audience.
How does everyone feel about the effects of new/social media/web 2.0 on the upcoming election? Opinions, thoughts?
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
I think what should happen as more and more voices (blogs) are heard is the development of a real vetting process about who to talk about and why. The quality of one’s statements should become more important than who that someone is. I mean, if some blogger with 1,000,000 readers says something utterly stupid and unreasonable, should that have as much coverage as someone who is thoughtful and rational about their opinions, but with far fewer readers?
Of course I see the problem immediately, the person with few readers wouldn’t be even noticed.
I think my comment stems from the fact that most the “pundits” on television are such unbelievable idiots and I just don’t get why they’re given the time of day.