Politics and Social Networking

I have kind of stayed away from the coverage about MySpace and the Presidential election because there seems to be a gluttony of stories about it. From MySpace running their own primary, to Obama taking his page back from a supporter, to who has how many friends, it all has been covered from the most part.

These politicians, or better yet, their staff have seen the importance of social networking. What is more interesting to me though is the use of social networking sites and politics on a local level. The Niagara Falls Review has an article about some of the people running in some of the local elections in Ontario.

The benefits of using these sites are real, you can target voters in your region, see what issues people are talking about. One of the quotes I found interesting in this piece was that interesting:

“The seeming closed-off nature of Facebook makes it a bit more appealing (to politicians) than MySpace, which is more wide open. There seems to be more credibility to it. But it opens politicians to political scandals – there’s still a bit of moral panic about the Internet out there.”-Scott Henderson, professor, Brock University

I thought it was interesting about the view that people have of Facebook versus MySpace. Also the political scandal comment intrigued me as well, if the site is used in a professional manner and not in a personal one are you still opening yourself up to that risk?

Technorati Tags: facebook, Ontario Election, Brock University