SOCIAL WEB

Social Web

Social Web

Introduction

Web sites are also used for mobilizing supporters to the social cause or political campaign. Involvement and mobilization tactics include inviting supporters to use secure online transactions to donate money, to send information to the campaign via feedback forms to indicate if the visitors would like to become more involved with the organization or campaign, to invite the visitors to sign up for e-mail alerts or newsletters, or to offer electronic petitions for visitors to sign and which are then delivered to politicians or other power elites. These tactics situate the visitors to the Web sites as not only information seekers but also as political actors who can participate in the political process in a variety of ways(Dimitrova, 2008).

It refers to the activities citizens can engage in to advocate for, or protest against, a political candidate, public policy, or social issue. The Web facilitates many of the traditional offline forms of political activism, including information dissemination (discussed earlier), and also opens up some new forms of political protest made possibly because of the communication technology, including new forms of political parody, “hactivism,” and vote swapping, to name a few.

Discussion

The Internet, even though less ubiquitous in other parts of the world, has become an indispensable part of the lives of Americans. According to 2006 statistics, 73% of American adults are Internet users. Recent election campaigns have demonstrated the tremendous potential of the Internet to influence the political process. In the 2004 U.S. presidential election, for example, the Internet played a key role for getting political news, discussing candidates, and participating in the political process online. Several aspects of the Internet as a media technology offering two-way, interactive forms of communication are particularly relevant: (1) e-mail; (2) blogging; (3) podcasting; (4) mechanisms for online feedback and participation; (5) social networking; and (6) online video sharing.

E-mail (short for electronic mail) allows two-way communication over the Internet by exchanging electronic messages between a sender and a receiver. E-mail penetration in the United States is almost ubiquitous, and e-mail popularity around the world is growing as well. One of the advantages of using e-mail is that it is a quick and inexpensive method to reach a large group of people in matter of seconds. Political parties and candidates can now obtain detailed databases with voter characteristics and e-mail addresses from marketing companies. Using such databases gives candidates running for office a real advantage by allowing them to “fine tune” their e-mail messages with more precision.

Blogging is another new use of the Internet that impacts political communication. Blogs (short for Web logs) are online diaries—online forums with chronologically threaded messages—that have mushroomed on the World Wide Web in recent years. Blogs can be created using free software (e.g., eBlogger) and thus allow citizens with Internet access to share their ideas online. Blogs can focus on various topics, including controversial public policy issues. As of 2006, only 11% of blogs focused on politics, however. Still, any citizen interested in a political issue can ...