Politics as we know it, has slowly transformed into a necessity, broadening the capacity of how one can use media to help presidential elections, bring aware to a political topics and share information in real time. “...Organizations and transnational social movements are emerging as a powerful new force in international politics and are transforming global norms and practices" (Sanjeev Khagram, James V. Riker, Kathryn Sikkink). Integrating social networking and politics has been a smart collaboration for those who have been able to utilize these two together. The most recent example of this newly found need for an Internet and social networking presence is the Presidential election of Barrack Obama. David Carr from the New York Times states, "…by bolting together social networking applications under the banner of a movement, they created an unforeseen force to raise money, organize locally, fight smear campaigns and get out the vote that helped them topple the Clinton machine and then John McCain and the Republicans" (Carr).
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| Citation: Jennings Social Media Marketing |
Social networking has allowed political candidates to merge into a world that has not previously been coupled together. It allows people to insert opinions into small group discussions happening online, write Blogs about beliefs and goals and also use Twitter to give continual feedback for the campaign followers. Online voting is also a new phenomenon that is slowly surfacing and becoming more prevalent to the many pajama voters! The capability of online voting is reaching the younger generations and encouraging them to participate in Presidential elections. Using social networking and intertwining it with politics is truly redefining the use of social networking, as well as the way we view the future of politics.
