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There is no doubt that technology can greatly influence society and thereby politics.  Consider how greatly the printing press came to effected Europe’s Reformation, the Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution, or the American Revolution and Civil War. Then fast forward to the effect of the telegraph or the first televised presidential debates. With the use of the internet and particularly Social Media  we are seeing yet another sea change in the way people gather information and are influenced by technology.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project conducted research in June that outline this shift.  In 2008, nearly half of Americans (46%) used the internet, email or a text messaging to get news about the presidential campaign, share their views, or mobilize others. Further, the most common online activities were watching online videos, social networking and making campaign donations.  In many cases use of these technologies have doubled or tripled since just 2004.

• 35% of Americans say they have watched online political videos - nearly triple the level of the 2004 race.
• 10% say they have used social-networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace to gather information or become involved. Two-thirds of internet users under the age of 30 have a social-networking profile, and half of these use social networking sites to get or share information about politics or the campaigns.
• 6% of Americans have made political contributions online, compared with 2% who did during the entire 2004 campaign.

Jeremiah Owyang did some quick election day social networking number crunching as well.  He found that in nearly all instances Barack Obama has far outpaced John McCain in the use of Social Media.  Barack Obama has 380% more Facebook and Myspace friends, almost a 1000% more Youtube views and 240 times the number of Twitter followers.  Will this mean that he will be the next President of the United States?  Not necessarily, but you can be sure that future elections will have a growing Social Media component. Good luck to both candidates and regardless of who wins, it will be interesting to see how our new leader deals with the difficult times ahead.

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