Political

Annotated Bibliography

**The Future of Political Social Media** Silverman, Matt. //The Future of Social Media and Politics//. Retrieved April 14, 2011, from http://www.blog.comhttp://mashable.com/2010/11/01/future-social-media-politics/ The author outlines some future trends in social media as it pertains to the United States and international political spectrum and the various social media tools available. The author explains that tools like twitter and facebook have had profound effects on particular events, political movements and political campaigns. The author contends that social media brings a political voice to more people, extends and expands transparency and credibility in the politics, and will ultimately improve public service. The author notes, " The importance of utilizing social channels can’t be understated. If you want to compete in today’s online political world, dedicate resources appropriately, and stick with it."  **A. The Opening of Facebook** Abram, Carolyn, Welcome to Facebook Everyone. Retrieved April 16, 2011, from http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=2210227130 This blog post was the first official announcement from Facebook of the opening of availability from select groups of membership in Facebook to fully open membership, noting that, ' This includes your friends who graduated pre-Facebook (yes, there was such a time), your friends who don't have school or work email addresses, and your friends whose schools don't give out email addresses. Now you can all connect" (para. 3)     **B. SNS as a political force** Kim, Y (2011). The contribution of social network sites to exposure to political difference: The relationships among SNSs, online political messaging, and exposure to cross-cutting perspectives, //Computers in Human Behavior// (27), 971-977. DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2010.12.001.   The author examines the effects and influences that social network sites (sns) have on political influence, messaging and individuals exposure to partisan messages outside of one's own political viewpoint. The results of the study indicate that SNS do have a positive effect on the expansion of political information availability to the individual and that to some extent a person will limit their expose to counter-partisan messages in the us of SNS. The author notes that "While this study hypothesized that partisanship would moderate the effect of SNSs on exposure to political difference, it found instead that partisanship did not moderate the associations between SNSs and exposure to cross-cutting perspectives. This indicates that inadvertent exposure to political difference facilitated by SNSs may happen regardless of individuals’ political orientations. That is, growing social network media can be helpful both for partisans and nonpartisans to expand their social boundaries by providing opportunities for information exchange, social interactions, and inadvertent exposure to dissimilar political views." (p.976). 

<span style="margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -.5in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Hanson, G, Haridakis, PM, Cunningham AW, Sharma, R, Ponder, J.D., The 2008 presidential campaign: Political cynicism in the age of Facebook, MySpace and YouTube.", //Mass Communication & Society//. Vol 13(5), Nov 2010, pp. 584-607 DOI: 10.1080/15205436.2010.513470  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">An examination of the user motivations in the use of social networking sites (SNS) for political conversations and discourse, the author explains the impact of the use of SNS on the influence of political cynicism. The author concludes that cynicism is more attibuted to the the users background and political beliefs rather than the mere fact that they use social media. The fact listed in the study was that the use of social media was a negative predictor to political cynicism. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -.5in;">**C. Social Media Brings People Together** <span style="margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -.5in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Shirky, C.. (2011). The Political Power of Social Media: Technology, the Public Sphere, and Political Change. Foreign Affairs, 90(1), 28-I. Retrieved March 28, 2011, from ABI/INFORM Global. (Document ID: 2222812761). <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The article outlines the impact of social networking on political powers and its ability to draw focus and interest enough in the people to develop mass protests. The author contents that while social media and internet freedom are important to the transparency of government operations, and the US government should continue to seek complete internet freedom and transparency, the ideal of a completely free web should not be used a lever for US political aims. The author notes an anecdote about the banning of beef importation from the United States to Korea and the mobilization of teen age girl demonstrators about the issue. Social networking has the unique ability to mobilize in an apolitical way. The particular instance of the beef importation ban protests were spurred on by a Korean Boy Band's website. Dong Bang Shin Ki certainly is not a political force, but the conversation began in the discussion section of their website and mobilized thousands of apolitical Korean youth-- in this case mostly girls. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -.5in;">**D. The Challenges** <span style="margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -.5in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> White, Charlie, //Obama says White House Tech is 30 years behind.// Retrieved April 16, 2011 from http://mashable.com/2011/04/15/obama-white-house-tech/ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The short blog post quotes President Obama saying," When it comes to technology, we are like 30 years behind". <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -.5in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Swift, M (2011, April 5) Obama to hold Facebook town hall. //Mercury News.// Retrieved from http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_17777433 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The article outlines a presidential first, which is a web-based, social media based town hall session on facebook. Barak Obama and Social Media founder Mark Zuckerberg have teamed up to set up the town hall meeting which will include about 1000 Facebook employees and an audience of potentially millions on the web. The event precedes a thirty-eight thousand dollar a plate fundraiser in the bay area. The author notes, "Obama has been a pioneer in the political use of technology; Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes played a key role in his campaign's use of the Internet and social media in 2008 for fundraising and to rally volunteers. Obama launched his re-election campaign Monday in part with a YouTube video, and he has 7.2 million followers on Twitter” (para. 13)