I've heard so much in the media about how this presidential campaign will be decided by the internet, that I was starting to think I was missing something. I visit blogs as regularly as I can but I had been avoiding social networking sites like the plague. I'd heard so many horror stories, like Ray Buckley's ordeal, or students who post inappropriate things and were turned down from jobs, that I thought they were the devil.
Two people changed my mind, and now I am a Facebook Addict. Susie Whitlock, who did advance work for the Edwards Campaign at UNH gave me a demo of how she was using Facebook to organize poster making sessions and promote events on campus. Then my pal and former colleague Bob Coffey of the University of Michigan, sensing my weakness, wore me down.
One of the first things I did was look up all the sites for the various candidates, College Dems and Young Republicans, Save Our Primary and other related groups. I heard a few stories on NPR saying that Obama "had more friends than anyone" and that he was winning the social networking campaign. Sounds so high-school...yuck! I had to investigate. My conclusion: bad reporting. Well, it's a good fluff piece, but it means nothing. Sure, all candidates have official sites but it's not always easy to tell which Facebook group is the "official" one for a group or candidate. Then there are a jillion specific ones, by state or special interest. And loads of fake or satirical ones as well.
And even if one candidates has the most "friends," is that representative of anything? A good look at Facebook demographics will show you this is the medium for the 20-somethings. Blogs also have their limited reach, as much as we'd all like to thing otherwise. When I was up north a few weeks ago, no one even knew what a blog was, nevermind what they say or who they support. Heck, Papa Mike didn't even know that NH had all but passed civil unions when we spoke last Saturday!
In New Hampshire, this primary is still going to be won by handshakes and house party campaigning. Sure Facebook is fun, but leave it to the college kids, and geeks like me who work with them. It's not real news.
