2008 Woodie Awards
Professor says some Internet campaigning enticing for young voters
Robert Preliasco
Issue date: 2/27/08 Section: Campus
02/27/08 - Typing in the name of any presidential candidate on Facebook.com can yield some unusual results. Senators John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have their own personal profiles run by their campaigns, which list interests and work experience in the same way that any college student's profile would.
There is a twist, of course, as each candidate's job history is a bit more colorful than those of the college students who normally populate Facebook. For example, each candidate's current employer is listed as the United States Senate.
Professor Brian Krueger of the University of Rhode Island political science department sees these unusual Facebook profiles as just part of a larger and relatively new phenomenon: political campaigning over the Internet.
Krueger said that college students are in a unique position in regard to online campaigning. Having grown up with the technology, young voters are particularly Internet-savvy. But they are also more cynical about the political process, he said.
Krueger said that when young people are inspired by a candidate, their motivation meets an affinity for computers that older people may not have.
"That's one of the reasons young people have been so involved on the Internet," he said.
This presents a problem for political campaigns: How can they reach that audience? At first the answer seems obvious given the mass appeal of the Internet and how inexpensive it is compared to traditional political mailings and phone drives.
Krueger said that campaigns first tried sending out mass "spam" e-mails, but quickly found that this is ineffective.
"People treated it like spam, and what do you do when you see a spam e-mail? You delete it," Krueger said.
He added that campaigns even experienced a negative backlash from potential voters angered by the spam e-mails. To prevent this, modern campaigns only contact people who have signed up to receive Internet messages.
There is a twist, of course, as each candidate's job history is a bit more colorful than those of the college students who normally populate Facebook. For example, each candidate's current employer is listed as the United States Senate.
Professor Brian Krueger of the University of Rhode Island political science department sees these unusual Facebook profiles as just part of a larger and relatively new phenomenon: political campaigning over the Internet.
Krueger said that college students are in a unique position in regard to online campaigning. Having grown up with the technology, young voters are particularly Internet-savvy. But they are also more cynical about the political process, he said.
Krueger said that when young people are inspired by a candidate, their motivation meets an affinity for computers that older people may not have.
"That's one of the reasons young people have been so involved on the Internet," he said.
This presents a problem for political campaigns: How can they reach that audience? At first the answer seems obvious given the mass appeal of the Internet and how inexpensive it is compared to traditional political mailings and phone drives.
Krueger said that campaigns first tried sending out mass "spam" e-mails, but quickly found that this is ineffective.
"People treated it like spam, and what do you do when you see a spam e-mail? You delete it," Krueger said.
He added that campaigns even experienced a negative backlash from potential voters angered by the spam e-mails. To prevent this, modern campaigns only contact people who have signed up to receive Internet messages.