Canidates and the Internet
- By Emily Kieson
- Published Thursday 29th 2007
Emily Kieson
Emily currently lives in Austin TX and spends most of her time writing and enjoying the weather. She loves to write stories and screenplays for all ages. When she's not writing, Emily is teaching horseback riding, working as a vet tech, or painting.
Candidates and the Internet
This may be the first election in history where the world wide web significantly impacts the results. Although the internet has been present in past elections, the number of voters who use the internet as their primary source of information has risen. This is not due to increased use of the digital media, but, instead, to the aging of an internet population.
A large percentage of Americans weaned on the internet will come of age by the time November '08 rolls around and these masses are being seduced by online news feeds. This, in my opinion, is wonderful. Prior to the internet, our candidates were chosen based on who received the most attention from the major television news sources. Each one of those, of course, focused on one or two candidates as opposed to the usual six or eight for each party.
Thankfully, the internet has changed this. Now small digital communities have amazing opportunities to spread the word to large amounts of people through a relatively unbiased medium such as youtube where individuals can post their own commentary or debate
clips alongside corporate promotions.
In other words, candidates such as Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul have the capacity to gain a following without the focus of the popular media sources that have swayed viewers in the past. What I find really interesting is the difference between the television news polls and the internet polls. Due to the variations in readership/viewership, they are continually coming up with vastly different results.
And, because of the rising tide of internet news feeds, blogs, and online opinions, people have become increasingly involved in political opinions and the Iraq war whether they've wanted it or not. Because of this constant digital feeding of our own imaginations and ideas, we've become dependent upon constantly updated information, resulting in our natural tendency to become emotionally involved in both the internet world as well as world wide activities. This media has then provided us with a vast array of candidates, each with their own following from a variety of sources, all of them available to us with the click of a button.
Research thoroughly and choose wisely.
This may be the first election in history where the world wide web significantly impacts the results. Although the internet has been present in past elections, the number of voters who use the internet as their primary source of information has risen. This is not due to increased use of the digital media, but, instead, to the aging of an internet population.
A large percentage of Americans weaned on the internet will come of age by the time November '08 rolls around and these masses are being seduced by online news feeds. This, in my opinion, is wonderful. Prior to the internet, our candidates were chosen based on who received the most attention from the major television news sources. Each one of those, of course, focused on one or two candidates as opposed to the usual six or eight for each party.
Thankfully, the internet has changed this. Now small digital communities have amazing opportunities to spread the word to large amounts of people through a relatively unbiased medium such as youtube where individuals can post their own commentary or debate
In other words, candidates such as Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul have the capacity to gain a following without the focus of the popular media sources that have swayed viewers in the past. What I find really interesting is the difference between the television news polls and the internet polls. Due to the variations in readership/viewership, they are continually coming up with vastly different results.
And, because of the rising tide of internet news feeds, blogs, and online opinions, people have become increasingly involved in political opinions and the Iraq war whether they've wanted it or not. Because of this constant digital feeding of our own imaginations and ideas, we've become dependent upon constantly updated information, resulting in our natural tendency to become emotionally involved in both the internet world as well as world wide activities. This media has then provided us with a vast array of candidates, each with their own following from a variety of sources, all of them available to us with the click of a button.
Research thoroughly and choose wisely.
