The readings from this week have really made me think about new media’s role in politics. I actually thought about something we talked about in my other social media class earlier in the semester. We were basically questioning whether or not Twitter and other social media really lead to action for causes. In order to answer this question, though, I thought back to some basic principles that I learned in my advertising, marketing, and public relations courses. It is commonly taught that you can change a person’s awareness, attitude, and actions. However, making a person aware of something is a lot easier than changing or neutralizing a person’s attitude or getting him to actually do something. So taking that into consideration, I came to the conclusion that not everyone is going to be motivated enough to turn his online support into offline support. I do think some people convert their support for a cause online to offline, but I think that new media is best used for creating awareness of causes and potentially changing people’s attitudes. But achieving action is still going to be hard no matter what. I think this would hold true for the election as well. I mean, it’s one thing to like a candidate on Facebook or even tweet “#voteObama,” but unless you actually go out and vote, your support doesn’t convert from online to offline. The only thing that doing either of the two things above would possibly do is encourage someone else to vote either for or against Obama. One other reference that I thought about when reading this week was one of the papers that was presented at the social media conference I attended at Howard University. The paper looked social media in the 08 presidential election in relation to African American support online and offline. This study concluded that online support did not equal offline support. This was on a micro level though, so perhaps on a macro level it would. I haven’t ventured into any other research involving this, so I don’t know offhand. But regardless, I think new media is commonplace in politics now, but whether it is pivotal in motivating people to action is a different thing all itself.