Campaigning Online
Experts have been saying that with the upcoming election, social media will play an important role in swaying people’s votes; however none of it can make up for face to face interaction. According to an article in the Kitchener Record, ‘the best campaigns… strike a balance between traditional events such as campaigning rallies and connecting with voters online.’
Being a new voter, and a young person, my first opinion after reading this article was that these campaigners need to get with the times, ditch the old ways of campaigning and use social media more to their advantage.
When I finished reading, I remembered an article found in The New Yorker a few years ago written by Malcolm Gladwell about social media and social activism. Small Change outlined how the relationships created by people while social networking is based on weak ties rather than strong ties which are usually formed from face to face interaction.
With the election coming up, I think that this would be a good story to cover on 519 Online News. I think it would be interesting to get the public’s opinion about how much influence social media has over voters; especially the younger population. The original article focused more on the expert’s opinion; I think it would be interesting to compare it to the public’s opinion.
