The Election and Social Networking

Social Networking sites, such as Facebook and Myspace, have an enormous impact on this year's presidential election. This impact is enforced and shown in many different ways on these two sites. On Mypsace, when a user first logs in there will often be advertisement all over the screen for different companies and products. With the election coming up, many of these advertisements are concerning the candidate's and their "changes" to the Country. Once a user actually enters Myspace the rest of this impact is shown with groups, pictures, videos, and basically anything else the user can place on their page. Many groups have been formed to support the election on both Myspace and Facebook. Obviously in this case the two main groups are those with Obama and the remaining with McCain for president. Myspace is more known to have the fancy visuals and videos on the users page. Facebook can have these, however this site is less creative than Myspace. Visually, these two sites have a large impact on the election with their videos, either to voice an opinion or to show a specific candidate, pictures of each candidate and some times parodies making fun, and groups are formed to individually support and destroy the candidates themselves.
Above visually, these sites are also showing their impact in the election using words. A user of Myspace or Facebook can put anything they wish about either candidate in their profile. Good or bad they are spreading their opinion about the candidates and changing the opinion of others as well. For example, someone may decide to vote for McCain strictly because a friend of theirs has supporting facts why he should be president. After viewing and reading the friends profile, he decided to vote for McCain because he agrees with his friend. This is an example of how social networking effects the election. Word spreads fast and even faster on the Internet. When a user blogs, comments, posts pictures, videos, or anything else related to election, it is effecting it.
Without social networking, the opinions about the candidates and advertising would all be done through verbal communication and campaigns. Word would still spread fast, however not nearly as fast. Also, groups would only be formed in campaigns and not online. Social networking simply spreads ideas, advertising, and groups faster and more effectively. This will have a positive and negative impact for both candidates in that users are not always going to have something nice or mean to say about the candidates. Overall, there is an impact and no matter what there will always be an impact on the election through sites such as Facebook and Myspace.
Professor Troy Murphy is one of the founders of MyVote, a website that allows students to voice their opinion about the election. An individual can voice their opinion to anything such as, the economy, gas prices, importance of education, military, which candidate they like and why, or even share a personal story how the new president will affect them. This is an example of social networking and this obviously impacts the election. This website spreads opinions and allows other students to view the videos and thus compare their opinions. The impact of social networking on the election is massive bring many ways individuals can share and voice their opinions about each candidate and the election overall.