The 2008 election was a Facebook campaign and this year twitter and facebook played major roles in the presidential campaign of 2012. President Obama won and a statistic came out that his campaign out tweeted Governor Romney’s campaign by a ratio of 8 to 1. Ms. Markman showed us a chart and people at 30 and under age wise had the higher percentage of those who were participating in some way during the presidsential campaign on social media sites, the only percentage where young voters were not a higher percentage was verbally telling others to vote. I had to work on election day from 2pm-10pm and I was able to keep up with everything that was going on via facebook and twitter. From Romney’s early 19-3 lead to when President Obama began to surge and went up 244-193 and I believe I stopped after The President won Ohio. I tried to look at official websites, but Twitter and Facebook were the most accurate, so I didn’t miss a thing. I am sure people with phones far better than mine were able to use Fox News on their phones, but my facebook on my Cricket phone served me just fine. Social Media, I believe will be a major asset for presidential campaigns from now on, and I say that with much confidence.
I think you’re right about the increasing influence of social media on politics, though it’s rather difficult to reach older people via the Internet. But for young people it will definitely be a major asset. Anyhow, it’s fascinating to see how many people follow Obama on Twitter. It allows him to react extremely fast – for example when he posted the picture of his chair after the Clint Eastwood speech.