[staff] Social Politics
It takes a lot of effort to avoid the presidential race in the US these days. And that is without even turning on the television or opening a newspaper. Instead, I open my Facebook and am greeted with videos, quotes, fan pages, and friend requests. All of which are about my preferred presidential candidate. Then I log in to my email only to find messages containing linked articles, websites, and upcoming events all about… who else but that very same presidential candidate.
I am far from alone in this campaign of increased interconnectedness. The International Herald-Tribune estimates "Between the two sites [Myspace and Facebook], Obama has about one million "friends," Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, his rival for the Democratic nomination, has roughly 330,000, and Senator John McCain, the presumed Republican nominee, has more than 140,000." Be mindful that "friending" is just one means of connecting to your candidate, this does not include the fan pages, groups and embedded and linked articles, speeches, and quotations. Now, consider this, according to the same article, "Fully two-thirds of Web users under 30 say they use social networking sites, while fewer than 20 percent of older users do." I, like many others, find myself more connected to others, including presidential candidates, than ever before. I have access to the politician's issues, words, rallies and likeminded supporters in a few simple clicks and strokes on my computer's keyboard.
As the under-30 generation had been previously criticized for its passiveness, perhaps its means and ability to mobilize was simply unrecognizable in this new era of social networks and web-relations. The Herald Tribune affirms, "According to interviews and recent surveys, younger voters tend to be not just consumers of news and current events but conduits as well — sending out e-mailed links and videos to friends and their social networks. And in turn, they rely on friends and online connections for news to come to them. In essence, they are replacing the professional filter — reading The Washington Post, clicking on CNN.com — with a social one."
