When obsessively logging into MySpace to check whether a friend has posted a new comment, students may notice an odd new feature. Under the “Cool New People” section of the main page, instead of seeing twenty-something college students, MySpace users may have started noticing older, more dignified looking potential friends – they’re presidential candidates.
Are our leaders suddenly trying to utilize a grassroots campaign of personally reaching out to their constituents through technology? Or are they simply tapping into a market of young voters who usually feel alienated from the political process? Is this new crop of presidential candidates more technologically savvy than their predecessors?
This new trend among politicians only goes to show that presidential candidates are making attempts to reach out to this country’s youth. It’s clear that our country’s current leaders recognize the importance of courting the favor of American youth, which means, in short, we have power.
Through the “MySpace Impact” portion of the site, candidates (or their ardent supporters) are creating profiles, blogging about recent events on the campaign trail, broadcasting videos and racking up friends and supporters from the youngest generation of voters.
Sen. Hillary Clinton is up to 65,027 friends, Sen. Barack Obama is close behind with 61,288 friends on his official MySpace site and John McCain has less than half of the friends that the popular female candidate does with only 30,639. (The popular former mayor of New York Rudolph Giuliani’s profile is set to private and cannot be viewed by people who aren’t on his friends list). The quintessential black horse, Joe Biden, has only 8,424 friends.
Clinton’s page has “HillCast” video clips of her giving her opinion on the issues of “equal pay” and “our troops.” Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards has his latest installation of his “We the People” series, in which regular-looking Americans address Congress and show their support for a bill withdrawing troops from Iraq in a short video. (His “We the People” series on YouTube has hundreds of thousands of views).
Instead of just serving as a fancy kind of e-mail, MySpace is reaching its users in a very different way. People are encouraged to get to know the current presidential candidates, both through their personal stories and their platforms. Edwards has pictures of himself in the water at the beach with his children and cleaning up after Katrina. Biden has links to the current initiatives he feels most passionately about, including an energy security plan, stopping the escalation in Iraq, ending the war and “a real plan for Iraq.”
There are also several knock-off versions of each candidate’s profile that are not within the official Impact portion of the site. (A quick search of Obama’s name yielded more than 20 different profiles of the candidate. Giuliani had only five, and Mitt Romney has more than 15 different sites).
Other features on the Impact part of the site include videos of “forgotten communities,” actress Natalie Portman’s video diary of the “Village Banking Campaign,” a movement to end world poverty, the “ourplanet” feature that demonstrates ways to reduce global warming and includes ways to get involved with reducing poverty in Africa. It also has a news link that enables users to learn about what is going on in the world and is linked to other news outlets.
Our universal friend, Tom, has also been plugging the Impact portion of the site, posting bulletins for the “impact channel,” notifying students of the non-profit job opportunities and ways to get registered to vote in the upcoming election next year. Tom definitely has quite an idea here. With summer just around the corner and many students (and MySpace users) looking for employment, getting involved with a non-profit organization (albeit for free) would certainly be a rewarding summer experience.
Again, it seems slightly unorthodox for politicians to be joining the MySpace crowd, but with this new trend everyone’s benefiting. Students are getting involved and politicians are starting to care about students’ concerns.
MySpace is making it easy to contribute. Log on and educate yourself. Get involved. The output required for such involvement is minimal, but the potential for change is extraordinary.
