Will Social Media in Politics Carry On?
Today is election day, and the front page of The New York Times has an article about the Internet being responsible for the largest voter turnout in ages and its huge impact on the 2008 campaigns of Barack Obama and John McCain.
There is no doubt that political efforts by candidates and their supporters on sites such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook have rallied thousands or millions of young voters and brought new ones into the fold. There is no doubt about the impact that community and communication through these mediums can have on a massive sector of our population.
This is why the momentum cannot stop now. Social media and social networks have proven their effectiveness to bring people together and engage in a two-way conversation. It’s engagement with politics and politicians like we’ve never seen before. So why stop after the election? These mediums can keep people interested in how our elected officials are leading our country and perhaps one day they will give us a voice in the decisions being made in Washington DC. YouTube can act as both a way to organize the community and as a medium for dissent — truly a democratic platform.
It is my hope that the success of social media in this election will encourage our next president to include it in his communication efforts during his time in office. Simply following the president on Twitter, we could be easily informed that he’s meeting with the prime minister of Japan about climate change, or that he’s talking to the secretary of the treasury about the economy. These are things we should know, and social media is the way to communicate them.
Both candidates talk about change. Policies and plans are one step in that direction, but rallying the American people and getting us involved and informed is perhaps a bigger step, and today, more than ever, we finally have a clear way to make it happen.
UPDATE: Read Write Web posts about a very good first step from the Obama administration-elect, change.gov.