Tuesday, October 19, 2010
What Obama Has Done.
Whether these actions on this list are true, embellished, or have no basis in fact, this is a prime example of the use of social networking sites to garner support for a political idea. This page had 10,933 people who "liked" it and it is gaining members so rapidly that when I refreshed it 5 minutes later it had 10, 936 "likes." Although a relatively small number of people in America, and even on Facebook, have seen this page it is still reaching a large audience. Facebook has allowed someone who felt strongly enough about supporting Obama to create this page which may result in the formation of large group support, just his campaign generated during the 2008 election. This type of support is exactly what democrats need in the midterm elections.
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It is pretty amazing how easy it is for one individual to get their point across to thousands of people in a matter of seconds with modern social networking technologies. As we discussed today in class, we may not use facebook for political reasons all of the time, but many politicians and citizens do to utilize facebook and twitter to make their political views known, especially Obama in his presidential campaign in 2008. I am sure there are many pro- Obama groups on facebook of this nature, and it is fascinating to see how rapidly people 'liked' this page. This example supports the argument of the author from last night's reading as this facebook group displays how useful and powerful a tool facebook and other social networking sites can be. However, as we discussed in class today as well, we must be careful of these groups online. It is difficult to gage how many people truly read the entire list before 'liking' and/or joining the group. This discredits these facebook groups because not all of the information on the page was accurate.. this displays how it is very easy to join a group online, and makes it less effective than traditional strategies to gain support.
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