Social Networks Take Center Stage

Social networking sites, such as MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn took on a huge role in the election. Although the inter net has been used in previous elections, the social networking aspect of advancing candidates really took off during this election. Even President Clinton had attempted a MySpace page during his campaign, but was never able to take full advantage of that opportunity. Obama made sure that his campaign team was on top of their game when coming up with new strategies for online awareness.

Both McCain and Obama attempted to reach people through social networking. Although McCain made a valiant effort, Obama took over the world of social networking during his campaign. His supports set up accounts through virtually every social network site, allowing the reach of his message to disperse through different social groups. His presence was everywhere online!

“While about one-in-five Americans overall (22%) uses an online social networking site such as MySpace or Facebook, these sites may be playing an important political role for some people…” (Internet’s Broader, 2008). I believe Obama’s success with social networking determined the overall outcome of the election. Experts predict that the use of social networking in the 2008 campaigns is just the beginning. They expect many more sites like these to pot up within the next few years, and will continue to play a critical role in elections.

Resources:

http://money.cnn.com/2007/09/12/technology/candidates_socialnets/index.htm

http://people-press.org/report/384/

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/153405/did_social_media_decide_us_presidential_election.html