Jessie´s Blog

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Many politicians have been introduced into the world of social networking to gain popularity and support. American president Barack Obama is one of the people who really integrated it into his recent campaign. Politics 2.0 is a great way for candidates to reach out to supporters on a personal level. Although many of these candidates do not personally update their blogs, facebooks, or twitters; it still gives the readers a feel of the politician´s personality and a connection that makes the politician seem human.

In the United states, it has become more popular to use these tools as additional advertisement. Instead of paying for commercials and making appearances, it is an easy way to gain support for free. Candidates spend large sums of money on advertisements and although they get their name out and are effective, I personally do not believe it serves as much of an impact as these other medias.

We learned in class that politics using 2.0 is a great way to appeal to each person´s interest. Every voter has a different opinion on issues and many issues that seem important to some seem miniscule to others. 2.0 gives candidates a chance to reach out to everyone who is intersted. If the candidate creates a group or links a page on facebook or twitter of something that interests one particular person they are more likely to read it and support other ideas by that candidate.

Another big advantage with social networking during politics is it reaches the younger generations. Historically in America, it is hard to get the youth to vote. There have been many campaigns run by celebrities to encourage the youth to go to the polls. With social networking, the youth are automatically engaged and information about elections are right in front of them whether they want it to be or not. This has helped to effectively reach the younger generation.

Obama also created his own website, www.mybarackobama.com. This database allowed supporters to interact and support or disagree with Obama´s view points.

Overall, I think that politics 2.0 is going to become the way of the future. I think that our society in America focuses a lot on change and this is one of the big ones that will come about. Politics 2.0 gives an easy way to reach out to supporters. It seems more personal and anyone can access it at almost anytime.