Candidates' Internet use may boost interest, votes

Public figures are increasingly resorting to unique Internet domains in an effort to relate to the masses.

First, it was the pope — with a snazzy Web site that tracks his every move — and now it’s the presidential candidates.

Web sites such as YouTube, Facebook and MySpace have become popular outlets for young voters to inform themselves about the candidates in this year’s presidential race.

Sen. Barack Obama’s speech on race has been viewed more than 4 million times since it first hit YouTube about four weeks ago. Not to mention the horde of Facebook groups dedicated to the candidates.

A Facebook group in support of Hillary Clinton has nearly 150,000 supporters and includes information such as her favorite books, movies, TV shows and an archive of recent speeches.

Supporters of Obama and Clinton can even befriend them on Facebook.

With the race for the Democratic nomination being so close between Obama and Clinton, young voters are playing a bigger role in the election and the candidates have to find ways to appeal to the younger crowd.

Accessibility of information about candidates via sites such as Facebook and MySpace may help to better inform young people because they retrieve most of their information from the Internet as opposed to a newspaper or news program.

Their presence on Facebook and MySpace can make candidates appear more like average people. It takes the candidates off their pedestals and puts them at a level where young people feel more connected to them.

The question is, will it compel them to vote?

However, mere access to this information might not necessarily mean young people will go out and vote. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, was very popular on the Internet during his race for the Republican nomination, but when it all boiled down, not enough people supported him at the ballot box.

Hopefully online networking sites won’t fail at reeling in young voters as the “Vote or Die” campaign did in 2004. Ironically, some of the music artists that pushed the campaign weren’t even registered to vote.

Although the candidates have Facebook and MySpace pages, users should know they likely are not updating the pages themselves.

If the candidates are really looking to impress young people, a good way to utilize their profiles would be to update the pages themselves. If the candidates logged in every once in a while, it would show they care about the interests of young voters.

But being “friends” with candidates via the web may not equal a vote come November. We won’t know until then whether candidates’ Internet campaigns have been persuasive enough to inspire young voters to head to the ballot box.

However, the presidential hopefuls’ efforts are a good start for showing they are paying attention to the interests of young Americans.

Published on Tuesday, April 22, 2008