The year is 2008 and if you haven't heard, and the only way you could not have heard is if you live in a box, is that America is in the midst of a Presidential election year.
Regardless of whom your candidate is, one thing is for sure, unlike the previous elections, the internet has and will continue to make a tremendous impact.
In a recent interview on NPR, Tony Cox reports about an interview he had with News and Notes web producer Geoffrey Bennett. Cox writes how Bennett claims, “Our level of online activism has spiked, given that more people are directly engaged either forwarding emails or reading campaign literature or, as you said, watching videos on YouTube.” He goes on to say, “Nearly half of Americans have used the Internet, email and text messaging to get political news. During this campaign, the number of people who have made political contributions online is triple that of 2004. And 35 percent of Americans have watched a political video online. That's' three times the number in 2004.”
YouTube and the internet have transformed this landscape. Information about the candidates has become readily accessible twenty four hours a day, 7 days a week. Whether it is spoof videos on YouTube or up to the minute information about your candidate on their Facebook or MySpace pages, chances are millions of people are flocking to the World Wide Web for information.
With blogging going mainstream due to its ease of use and ability for anyone to write freely and express themselves, the internet also posses the problem of information overload. Now voters will really have to think hard about who they are voting for, given the thousands of pieces of information at their fingertips.
