Sunny from Pickled Politics discusses the social network site Facebook. He does not think Face Book will change politics in a hurry. I joined it recently, and found its a great way to stay in touch with people, and see how many friends people have, other than that I dont see it as being very useful.
I have now been fervently addicted to the website Facebook for several months now. Of course my excuse is that I wanted to learn how social networking works and what political opportunities it can offer. Unfortunately the short answer is: not much and not anytime soon. So if anyone out there is trying to sell you a political campaign through social networks now, fire them.
To be fair, Facebook has many advantages over its competitors for those interested in politics and social issues.
The most important is the homepage, which notifies you of developments on your own profile and offers a glance at what your friends have been doing. It works brilliantly as the electronic equivalent of word-of-mouth hype because everyone can be plugged into what their peers are reading, buying, watching at the cinema or checking out on YouTube. You can even announce that you’ve split up from your partner and are now ‘Interested in Random Play’. Anyway, I digress.
For niche commercial or non-profit organisations hoping to build up a profile through word-of-mouth this is the holy grail. For politics the evidence is less clear. While I’m not sure it helps politicians attract more people to support their campaigns, it certainly accelerates the proliferation of social issue groups.
I have now been fervently addicted to the website Facebook for several months now. Of course my excuse is that I wanted to learn how social networking works and what political opportunities it can offer. Unfortunately the short answer is: not much and not anytime soon. So if anyone out there is trying to sell you a political campaign through social networks now, fire them.
To be fair, Facebook has many advantages over its competitors for those interested in politics and social issues.
The most important is the homepage, which notifies you of developments on your own profile and offers a glance at what your friends have been doing. It works brilliantly as the electronic equivalent of word-of-mouth hype because everyone can be plugged into what their peers are reading, buying, watching at the cinema or checking out on YouTube. You can even announce that you’ve split up from your partner and are now ‘Interested in Random Play’. Anyway, I digress.
For niche commercial or non-profit organisations hoping to build up a profile through word-of-mouth this is the holy grail. For politics the evidence is less clear. While I’m not sure it helps politicians attract more people to support their campaigns, it certainly accelerates the proliferation of social issue groups.
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