Social Media and Super Tuesday
Friday, February 08, 2008
The writers have been on strike for so long, that I think we have given up on the idea of scripted programming altogether. Perhaps, during a more uneventful time period, the strike would have more dire consequences. It's a good thing we have this election to keep us on the edge of our seats and thoroughly entertained.
Just as I was scanning for news on how social media impacted Super Tuesday results, I stumbled upon the news that Mitt Romney has dropped out of the race. Out of curiosity, I wondered who had the exclusive. After scrolling back to the 30th page (yes, thirtieth, as in three - zero) of Google News results, I gather that ABC was one of the first to post the news to the site of its local San Francisco affiliate just 4 hours earlier.
So, where was I? Oh yes. Did social media have an impact on the biggest primary day?
A nice place to begin answering that question is on a blog called the Marketing Pilgrim. On Super Tuesday morning, the Pilgrim made a bold claim that the winners were already decided based on online fanfare. Its prediction: John McCain and Barak Obama would win on Super Tuesday.
The prediction was largely based on positive and negative search results on the candidates. Apparently, Obama and McCain had the most positive results.
What really happened? Yes, McCain did win, but what about the democrats?
Despite their reported dead heat, there are stark implication made by the states that were won by Clinton and Obama. A nice summary by blogger Krutic can be read here on Blog Critics Magazine.
I suppose if you count the states, Obama won. When looking closely at the states he won, however, a different picture comes into focus. Out of the 13 he won, only 3 - Connecticut, Illinois, and Delaware - tend to vote democratic and would truly count for him in a general election.
Clinton, on the other hand, won the democratic strongholds of Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and California. These are all monster states in terms of population, which equal to delegates, which equal to winning the nomination.
But back to the question at hand: Did social media make a difference?
I think it is safe to say that social media has made a huge impact for Barak Obama's campaign. I would even make the claim that without his enthusiastic youth following, he would have been driven to anonymity months ago.
The more appropriate question might be: Can the youth truly decide this primary? In essence, will the difference social media is making count?
Jeffrey Feldman wrote an interesting article for The Huffington Post on this very topic. In it, he explains that while there is an exorbitant amount of attention being paid to Obama and his movement, the fact is that on Super Tuesday "the 18-24 age group typically made up only 7%-8% of the overall vote, while the 65 and over age group typically made up 20%-22% of the vote." And guess what, "Obama did not carry the 65 and older vote in a single state." Not even in his home turf of Illinois, where the senior vote was split 50/50 between him and Clinton.
With the current facts in mind, it's important to note that the race is far from over. Clinton is about 100 delegates ahead of Obama and all fingers point to this primary going to the democratic convention in May.
The basic fact that young people don't vote, yet are very opinionated online remains. So, for now at least, we might have to take Facebook polls and the like with a grain of salt. Perhaps a true testament to social media will only be seen decades from now, when the young are not so young anymore.Labels: 2008 elections, Internet, social media, social networking, super tuesday, Web 2.0
And they’re off
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
With the primaries well on their way, we are beginning to see the real impact social media is having on the voter turnouts as well as the actual votes cast. For reference sake, I will note that on Facebook, Obama has an overwhelming lead with 61% of participants of the US Politics feature supporting him. Clinton has just 18%, and Edwards comes in 3rd with 10%.
On the Republican side, surprisingly, Ron Paul is the front runner with 37%. The support for the other candidates is split fairly evenly. In order, Huckabee is 2nd with 19%, Romney 3rd with 14% and McCain 4th with 11%.
Facebook doesn’t break down these figures further, for example, indicating the median age of supporters. However, it can be safely assumed that the majority of these folks are in their 20s and 30s and, thus, represent a voice younger than that captured by the polls conducted by CNN and other traditional news organizations.
With that said, the argument can be made that social media is having a relatively big impact for Democrats. In Iowa last week, where Obama was victorious, young people came out in record numbers. According to Time, “[t]urnout among the youngest slice of the electorate more than doubled from 2004.”
The same was true in New Hampshire yesterday. In a press release today about the state’s voter turnout, the presence of youth - deemed as adults under 30 - increased 25% from 2004, from just 18% to 43%.
An article from MTV.com about Clinton’s win in NH broke down the numbers. In Iowa, just 10% of Democrats aged 17-24 voted for her, while 57% voted for Obama. In New Hampshire, 22% of 18-24 year olds supported Clinton, but an astounding 60% rallied for Obama.
So how did Clinton manage to win in New Hampshire? While young voters are taking the most active role in history in the primaries, so is the rest of the population! In that same article, strong support from women, 46% to be exact, was cited as the reason for her win in NH. Apparently, women in Iowa don’t care much for other women.
Perhaps what’s even more telling about the success of social media in these elections is CBS’ announced plans this week to partner with Digg on coverage pertaining to the campaigns. It’s a you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours kind of deal. CBSNew.com will feature stories rated highly on Digg on their site and Digg will feature articles from CBSNews.com.
It’s nice to know that when all is said and done in November, our country is already well on its way to creating real change. Through the integration of social media, apathy is quickly becoming very passé.Labels: 2008 elections, digg, Facebook, new media, politics, social media, Web 2.0
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