By Elizabeth Fleming
ROME Oct. 7, 2008- Democratic Party presidential nominee Barack Obama has 2,020,869 supporters on Facebook and another 670,640 Myspace friends while his opponent John McCain has 561,009 Facebook fans and 156,925 Myspace friends.
To some, these numbers mean nothing. But to those watching the youth vote, these figures represent the latet way politicians are using the internet to engage youth supporters.
With the 2008 election in full gear, campaign strategists are looking to new ways to incorporate the younger generation in the election. Ten years ago they solved this problem through Rock the Vote. Today, campaign strategists are turning to Facebook, Myspace, YouTube, and other internet sites to gain support from the young.
During the 2004 election, Facebook was just starting up and YouTube did not yet exist. Today, both senators Obama and McCain have created online communities through these sites and others. Obama alone has over 1 million Facebook friends and another 650,000 friends on Myspace -- a figure larger than some states.
With both the Democratic and Republican parties dueling it out to claim a part of the virtual world, one might ask why all this fuss to target the youth? The internet is being used as a battleground to target the youth because of their value in the election this year. Politicians and their campaign strategists have come to realize that college-aged voters are the most tech-savy generation, and use the internet as a means of vital communication.
These new online campaigns not only help politicians, but allow the younger generation to have more of a say in the election, while keeping up to date on the election itself. Anna Markwica, a 19-year-old study-abroad student at John Cabot University, says, "the online websites for both parties continues to grow by the day and represent a new form of communications... There are Facebook profile pages for nearly all candidates, multiple Facebook groups for McCain and Obama and also Myspace pages.”
Here are some other election-related sites worth watching:
NBC in conjunction with Myspace launched Decision ’08 earlier this year. This website shows election news, polls, discussion forums, debate video clips, and other pertinent information relating to the campaign. In June, 2007, CNN and YouTube collaborated on the CNN/Youtube Debates series as well.
The CNN-YouTube Debates are televised debates where the questions are submitted through YouTube. TechPresident is a website dedicated to how the election candidates are using the web, and how the web is using the candidates.
Both the Republican and Democratic parties have provided valiant efforts into enticing the youth to vote. But come November 4th, we will find out whose efforts were strong enough to gain the youth vote.
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