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Social Media Influence Elections, Not Laws - Digital Life Blog - InformationWeek - The Diigo Meta page

www.informationweek.com/...NQW50B2TTPNQE1GHRSKH4ATMY32JVN - Cached

This link has been bookmarked by 1 people . It was first bookmarked on 30 Oct 2009, by Howard Rheingold.

  • 30 Oct 09
    hrheingold
    Howard Rheingold

    "We've seen how social media like Twitter and Facebook can be used as part of a winning election strategy, but the same tools don't seem to influence elected officials or public policy.

    Maybe it's because elected officials are rarely on Facebook or Twitter themselves -- those posts you see are from their proxies. Or maybe there's something different about the dynamic when it comes to generating momentum for or against a given law -- it's easier to get excited about a person than a law -- but there's also more fragmentation in cyberspace.

    What I mean is, it's pretty easy to coalesce electronic activity -- both for and against -- around a particular candidate. Particularly when a social-media-savvy manager is running a campaign, it's fairly easy to ensure that the "official" Facebook page or Twitter account gets all the hits.

    But it’s very different with issues, even big ones, because no one owns an issue the same way a campaign manager owns a candidate. "

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