Proposal

Abstract
This essay will explore the effect of social media during campaigning. It will explore how candidates can interact with voters and how voters can interact with each other. It will discuss the three main social media sites Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and how they all have a different way of communication. Also it will discuss the different techniques candidates take to portray themselves as a friend and a person who understands the voter’s issues. This essay will explore the techniques used to capture voter’s attention and the process it takes to reach Americans to get them to vote.

The Effect of Social Media on the Process of Campaigning In the United States, social media sites are currently being used by two out of three people, and search engines are used daily. Social media is helping America to stay informed, to stay organized, and to react rapidly. Not only can users on social media sites communicate with their friends, but they can also communicate with other users whom they connected with through shared use of political groups and pages. During the 2006 and 2008 election seasons, new technologies emerged that enabled individuals to participate in media-rich online communities organized around the creation and exchange of media content. The popularity of social media such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, especially among younger voters, provides a highly visible environment for candidates to promote themselves, interact with voters in fundamentally different ways than in previous elections, and enable users to interact with their peers about political issues. There are many social media sites where candidates can promote themselves. Facebook is one of the top used sites. In the 2008 election, Obama used Facebook to help build a following, especially among the site’s base of college students and people in their mid-twenties. His page had over 3 million supporters (Eldon, 2008). In contrast to other social networks, the site has always focused on getting real people to share real information and to use features like groups and events to organize real-world activities. Getting a user to share, comment and like the content flowing through the site is a huge victory (Vitak, 2011). Facebook could potentially help reach voters who don’t just rely on traditional print and TV outlets for information. Republican and Democratic presidential candidates utilized the site, maintaining pages that allowed users to post comments, share news and videos, and connect with other users (McGrath, 2011). Furthermore, Facebook members had access to various site features that allowed them to share their political views and interact with others on the site, including both their ‘‘friends’’ on the site, as well as other users to whom they connected with through shared use of political groups and pages (Vitak 2011). Twitter is another main social networking site that many people use. Twitter users have multiplied by more than 10 since the 2008 election (Dorsch, 2012). Twitter gives candidates the opportunity to disseminate information. “WE JUST made history”, tweeted Barack Obama shortly after claiming victory in the 2008 U.S Presidential election (Eldon 2008). Obama found a way to communicate with the younger crowd prior to the 2008 election. Doing so, he left a footprint in politics. The Obama campaign and Democrats used online and social media tools effectively during the 2008 presidential election, although many were still relatively unpopular. Many people believe that is why there was a surge in Republicans adopting things, like Twitter, after 2008 because of how effective the Obama campaign had been (Dorsch, 2012). Obama and Romney in the 2012 election both used Twitter to solicit donations, post updates about their travels, and talk about their private lives (Aldhous, 2012). YouTube is a site focused on videos. With more than 81 million unique viewers a month and 13 hours worth of video uploaded every minute, the Google-owned video-sharing site has become the go-to portal for all clips political during a presidential election (Ramirez, 2008). On YouTube, candidates are more likely to post lighter and more personal videos than the regular ones s person would see in commercials (Metaxas, 2012). The videos include live chats with supporters, montages from family films, and humorous mashups (Kushin, 2010). The candidates strive to connect with their voters and portray themselves as someone who not only wants to win the election, but someone who cares what Americans want. YouTube is a great way to show America the true background of them and connect with voters (Ramirez, 2008). Through social media, politicians can spread their messages instantly and interactively through the internet and they can also collect information. If people share something a candidate posts on a social networking site or if a candidate responds to people’s comments on his or her page; that back-and-forth creates a conversation and builds relationships with voters (Zeek, 2012). Candidates can collect data from voters in order to personalize the campaign. This makes the candidate familiar with what is important to the voters. Lately there have been many people worried about how companies mine the personal information of social media users to deliver targeted advertising (Hanson, 2012). That strategy is now increasingly being used by political campaigns (McNary, 2012). A company called Nation Builder helps campaigns and organizations connect with voters using social media and voter registration records. The L.A. Company works to economically turn ones social media activity into votes (Metaxas, 2012). "With Facebook and Twitter, we can start to pull information about what you 're interested in. This is all things that people have explicitly made public," Green said. "We 're not pulling stuff that 's not public" (McNary, 2012). With Nation Builder it helps the candidates become familiar with what is important to the voters and what they are interested in so they can do what the voters please and get their votes. Candidates are seen as a friend who knows and understands the problems voters face and want solved (Campbell, 2011). Unlike campaign signs and printed promotional material, social media provides a great format for posting fresh photos and videos of candidates that can spark voter support (Sbranti, 2012). Both Obama and Romney were flowing through my Twitter and Facebook newsfeed before the election communicating with voters back and forth. Candidates tweet events, post campaign messages and photos to Facebook, allow supporters to check in at rallies on Foursquare and air campaign videos on YouTube (Dorsch, 2012). By communicating with voters through social media sites, candidates show voters their own lives and make themselves look just like anyone else (Campbell, 2012). Social media allows users to communicate and interact with each other. Facebook is one of the better sites for users to communicate. Wall posts, instant messaging and messages are all ways users can correspond with each other (Vitak, 2011). Facebook Newsfeed though, is one of the most important (Johnson, 2012). The newsfeed aggregates and displays user’s friends’ activities including status messages, recently uploaded photographs, new notes, and recently joined groups (Vitak, 2011) In the 2008 election, users could engage in a number of political activities, including becoming a “fan” of a candidate, downloading political applications, and joining political groups, which would also appear in the Newsfeed, enabling them to engage their Facebook friends in conversation related to the election (McGrath, 2011). Seeing friends posting about a certain candidate is likely to persuade one into liking who all of their friends like. No matter what social media site, there will most likely be people debating politics, and stating their opinions. When Mitt Romney said he would cut funding for public TV, but qualified that by saying “I love Big Bird”, Twitter reacted with 135,332 tweets per minute. Parody Twitter accounts @SadBigBird and @FiredBigBird followed (Farrell, 2012). When Barak Obama mentioned “horses and bayonets”, Twitter roared again with around 426,675 mentions (Metaxas, 2012). Not all of the mentions are in favor of the same thing that the candidates post, but they are followers debating back and forth on their own thoughts (Zeek, 2012). Social media platforms are influential sounding boards during presidential campaigns not only for political satire, but as vehicles for Republicans and Democrats to push their messages and promote their candidates (Metaxas, 2012). Social networking sites have given America new ways of communicating that never existed before. The sites enable candidates to promote themselves, interact with voters in fundamentally different ways than in previous elections, and enable users to interact with their peers about political issues. They allow people of a range of ages to debate and discuss politics. Social networking sites are a way to engage young people who are often portrayed as apathetic toward politics. Candidates can capture information about voters through social networking sites, and use that information to eventually gain supporters.

References
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References: Aldhous, P. (2012). The social election. New Scientist, 213(2856), 20-21. Campbell, M. (2011). Cyber Election. New Scientist, 212(2844/2845), 28-29. Farrell, Michael B Greyes, N. (2011). The untapped potential of social media. Campaigns &amp; Elections (2010), 32(300), 44-47. Kushin, M., &amp; Yamamoto, M. (2010). Did social media really matter? College students ' use of online media and political decision making in the 2008 election. Mass Communication and Society, 13(5), 608-630. McGrath, M Metaxas, P., &amp; Mustafaraj, E. (2012). Social Media and the elections. Science, 338(6106), 472- 473. Sbranti, J N