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Social Media and the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election
Society for New Communications Research, Sep 2010, Pages: 35
The 2008 U.S. presidential campaign offered a unique opportunity to evaluate the usefulness and applicability of social media technology in the American political environment. This study’s assessment of the role that social media played during the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign confirms some widely held tenets of conventional wisdom about social media, but it also indicates that the role of social media as the new sine qua non of American politics is far from certain.
While there is no shortage of examples of ways in which social media such as Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook played a facilitating role in the unfolding of the 2008 election, there is little hard evidence that any of these social media venues actually drove discussion, participation, or outcomes. The bottom line is that social media tools are only tools. They are no replacement for message, motivation or strategy.
Wikipedia defines social media as “primarily Internet and mobile-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings.” Commonly used social media tools include blogs and microblogging platforms, Twitter, social networking platforms like Facebook, MySpace, and Linkedin, sites like Digg, and online video, like You- Tube. The list grows longer each day, but the fundamental characteristic of each continues to be the ability to share and discuss information within a network.
The Pew Internet and American Life Project reports that “a record-breaking 46 percent of Americans used the Internet, email, or cell phone text messaging to get news about the campaign, share their views, and mobilize others.” That same study indicated that 35 percent of Americans watched political video online and 10 percent used social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook to learn more about the race. These and other numbers reflect substantial increases in the number of Americans using social media as part of the election campaign process in 2008 as compared to 2004.
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