Absorb What's Useful

Talk leads to Recruitment

by Casey Klofstad

Reviewed by Alvin Singh

The central theme of this article is based on a research that talking about politics with our peers leads individuals to become more politically active.  The central groups and social circles a person identifies with has a major influence not only on our political views but also our involvements as well.  Many people have been turned off by politics and the way laws are enforced and civic involvements continue to be the clearest test of what democracy stands for.  The ability to believe a certain way about an issue and possibly motivate a majority to agree that their is a general census of how it show be implemented.  

There is also the understanding that individuals who are more active in politics chose to associate with peers that are equally interested in politics.  Klofstad was able to ask a group of participants specific questions about what kind of conversations they had with peers about politics and current news.  Her results found that peers talk in three different ways:

1. Providing individuals  with information on how to become active
2. Increase individual engagement with politics and current events
3. Ask individuals to participate in civic activities

During a popular election like the 2008 Presidential race many people have found themselves expressing their political views much more than normal.  Some voters are involved in the registering and campaigning efforts while others have taken a back seat in volunteering their time for their chosen candidate.  Existing research has proven that individuals gain access to resources and recruitment as they discuss politics with their friends.  In this article Casey Klofstad gave an example of how individuals are more likely to enjoy an informal discussion with friends than going to a candidate’s rally filled with strangers.  A candidate will have a better chance of getting a new supporter by having one of their friends mention their views and ability to lead than going to a hosted event.  Even the most engaged and resourceful people are more likely to participate in civic activities if they are asked by someone else to get involved.  This is also true when relating to voting since people are more motivated by others to vote by someone else.  Some studies have shown that people will be more likely to vote if someone from the political party is going door to door in neighborhoods.

This is a proving factor that many people are motivated by issues and policy records while a large majority can be influenced by the amount of information and discussions they have with their immediate peer group.  Personal interaction has a bigger contribution than phone banks and direct mail does.  When people are engaged in conversations about politics the more they identify with their own values and opinions.

This same analysis can be compared to the blogosphere and what publications people use to keep them informed.  When blogs have a more left lean and a right conservative opinions then this creates a larger gap between each side communicating with each other.  not many people attend both a Democratic and Republican event to hear both sides of the issues and then make a decision based on what they heard or witnessed. Instead people have a pre judge assumption of what they think a certain party is like before even learning for themselves.  Also the less people talk about politics in your surrounding the less inclined you will be to engage or participate in anything political.  This was true with a research study with college freshman’s who were asked to document the time and activity they spent with their roommate on anything political.

The results proved that 50% agreed that they were exposed to below average levels of civically relevant discussions while the other 50% were subjected to above average amounts of discussions.  This is were the popular quote “birds with feathers, flock together” has a true meaning.  Most students will only engage themselves after someone has first introduced them to the political causes.   This is why college campuses have always been a place where political movements have succeeded and failed.  In college you have a population of young and educated adults who are available to put time in volunteering and organizing for advocacy.  Once a few students are organized they can collectively influence other students to join based on the impact and resources they have available.  In a campaign like the 2008 election the collegiate participation is crucial to win the young vote and also provide opportunities for them to be a part of the process.  This is a place where peer influence can be the most effective unlike professional environments where politics is sometimes taboo to discuss.

Klofstad also writes that correlation between resources, engagement and recruitment lead to a higher participation rate.  The more people talk about politics and current events among peers and the more information that is available to support those discussions can lead to larger recruitment.  This is happening everyday as more people are comfortable with bashing another opponent in core group communications and then turn on a their favorite TV station to receive more of the supporting views.  After they complete their favorite news broadcast they may even read their favorite blog that provides the same arguments.  Many people refuse to accept a different opinion and listen without an immediate objection.  According to the author these types of resources and engagement lead to civic participation.

As the Internet continues to play a major part in communication and how humans are learning then this same research would be interesting to see how it plays in social media platforms.  Are people more likely to only become “friends” with people who are of the same nationality, ethnic, or gender group?  What if someone has a opposite political candidates banner on their site and will it effect whether or not someone will request a “friendship”?  If social media networks are designed to connect people then will we actually be separating ourselves further by using this Internet?

Non Profit organizations Perceptions and Uses of the Internet

 by Linda Jean Kenix

Reviewed by Alvin Singh

This article was a article that caught my attention early since I am the director of the archive division of the Lead Belly Foundation.  Working with a non profit with a small budget really makes a individual appreciate the hard work that volunteers put into supporting causes without monetary benefits.  The true profit comes from the effect that these small organizations have on lives all across the world.  

Political non profit organizations like Save Darfur, Project for the New American Century, Move on or the National Center for Public Policy are just small examples of how non profits have influenced both pubic and foreign policies.  Some are think tanks and some are volunteered based which utilizes the Internet to organize rallies or joint letters to lawmakers.

Example 1:  Save Darfur has a prepared statement written to the UN or President Bush to join the cause to end genocide in Darfur, Sudan.  Here is the statement.

The author did a research of 52 people in 7 focus groups across the country to gain a better understanding of how nonprofit organizations perform and utilize the Internet.

Many nonprofit organizations believed that traditional media outlets misrepresented their mission statements therefore allowing the Internet to better communicate their purposes and fundraising goals.  The article bases most of its research from the social theory of Habermas and early scholars who predicted that the Internet provides a vibrant public sphere for volunteers and advocacy.  During the Enlightenment Age public sphere was celebrated and provide a forum for parliamentary democracy.  This began to change immediately once the industrial society was politically joined with state-organized capitalism that controlled the commercialization of mass media.  In the book The Creation of the media, Paul Starr explains how during the colonial days in America the printing press was a main source of information for political news.  Once the colonialist became more constant supporters of the local newspapers the literacy rate increased and more people wanted to be a part of the entire struggle.  This is a similar example of how non profit organizations which have normally been identified as grassroots can now reach a broader audience with less time and resources.  The major concern that non profits have about the internet is how will they know if their online presence is making a difference and what amount of resources do they spend to maintain a website.  

As more people get accustomed to the Internet and more confidence in the privacy of online donations grow their will be a increased support of non profit organizations in years to come.  

Example 2: Here is the website for the nationwide community organization ACORN that has been under recent scrutiny for voter registration fraud.  Many of its workers have failed to honestly register voters and the website provides a platform for ACORN to counter the attacks and “fight back”.  

Here is a video that was produced and placed on YouTube explaining the work that ACORN does for low income families and how the recent attacks from the media and right wing pundits are not new.

Discussion

How useful is the Internet to non profits?  Some of the participant of the research agreed that the web was a more valuable tool for staff than reaching clients.  Roughly 60 percent of the participants thought that the worldwide web was more of the same and that early hopes of democracy on the Internet were overstated.  One member felt that viewers of there website was privileged to have access to the information and could get the same materials from their paper-based promotional brochures.  

Some of the non profits admitted that they were adopting a “corporate model” turning the informational tool of the Internet into a marketing tool and built their sites around business models.  One New Yorker interviewed mentioned” What we’re doing more and more as an organization, is getting corporate sponsorships”.  Although some are skeptical of this practice most of them believe that this is the next step in any economic model based on the Internet.  These business models have increased online donations from 24% in 1999 to 48% in 2004 of total funds raised online.  

What happens when the business model is not turning in profits?  Some organizations have sold items that were once free, online or as some of the research participants admitted they even considered selling information that was once private.

How can non profit organizations measure success on the Internet?  Does a company measure how many emails that are able to enlist or how many visitors to the website? Is it how many viewers of a advocacy video or how many comments were made in response?

Example 3: This is a video of the Lead Belly Foundation that I produced late 2007 to inform people about the foundation and its mission.

 

Here is a video that was produced as a joke to get people to vote using a “viral” pre-produced customized video by Move On

Republican Senator from Alaska Ted Stevens has been found guilty of corruption charges that could possibly come at a bad time for GOP Presidential candidate John McCain and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.  

The Arizona Senator has had a strained relationship with Stevens due to McCain’s opposition to earmarks, which Steven’s was the chief advocate of the”Bridge to Nowhere”.  The corruption charges that he has been found guilty are proof that both Democrat and Republican politicians have been involved in sex scandals, bribery, and abuse of power throught this 2008 camapign.  Politicians from Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to Gov. Eliot Spitzer have all been headlined in news across America as irresponsible public servants.  Both candidates have had to play a certain distance from criminals in their parties.

Sen. Barack Obama’s chief strategist David Axelrod was a media consultant during Spitzer’s election for Governor of New York. In March 2008 Spitzter announced his resignation and of course the Obama campaign denied any connections with the Governor.  What voters and critics of politics have to remember is that candidates are not any different from other humans who have broken or bended the law.  It just frustrating that people actually chose them to do it under a shield of protection. Not so, corruption has been going on since the beginning of democracy and it will continue to be sold for the highest bidder. That is unless the people who elect them are more involved and asking the right questions of who they elect.

The Stevens case proves that while some strategist in the McCain campaign were questioning whether Obam started his political career in a “terrorist” living room there should be more questiong of a recent criminal being connected to one of the current candidates.  Stevens’ political action committee, Northern Lights PAC, contributed $5000 to the McCain campaign in April 2008. Palin served as the director of Ted Stevens’ Excellence in Public Service Inc, a 527 group that raised unlimited funds from corporate donors, from 2003 until June 2005.  The unknown fact is that Stevens is the longest seating Senator in history.

Lets see how the traditional media plays this out.  

I was reading about the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) and thought that this was a appropriate time to give my interpretation. The transparency during the election process is vital to proving that democracy can be trusted. Votes, political affiliation donations, and campaign volunteering are all what makes America a place that democracy has been studied. According to the law a donors name, address and place of employment are considered public information and donor list are available on the Internet. Campaigns are not legally required to report donations totaling under $200 but may do so; some have proposed that the limit should be raised to $500 or $1000.

Click here to learn more from Wikipedia: Federal Election Campaign Act

By Alvin Singh

Reading this article I learned something about Joe Lieberman that I didn’t know. He is a good politician. Once Vice Presidential nominee and a long standing Democrat who fought for a race against Ned Lamont by the organization of blogs. Ted Pirch clearly explains the differences between what a political party can be defined as. One writer explained that it is a network of likeminded individuals that have a common purpose with traditional values who work to get officials elected in office. In this primary election between Lieberman and Lamont bloggers played a pivotal role in politics that provided more cases of how the internet was being used for political organizing. Read the rest of this entry »

 

Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign team has purchased advertisement on Xbox video games like “Madden NFL Live”, and nine other titles by Electronic Arts.

Whenever gamers are playing online in any of the 10 target sates the ads will appear on billboards, and sideline posters. The ads are downloaded when gamers log on to the internet service on Xbox and can see Vote for Change ads with a headshot of Obama.  While this is not the first time these advertising spots have been used this is the first time a political candidate has taken such an advantage.  Not surprisingly all 10 states targeted are swing states:  Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Indiana, Montana, North Carolina, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio and Wisconsin. President Bush won all of those states in 2004 except for Wisconsin.

Leave a comment on what you think of this use of public officials using huge amounts of money to market with none traditional marketing tools?

Recent ruling has just passed allowing Congress members to use Flickr, Twitter, and YouTube to ocmmunicate with citizens over the Intenet.  The Sunlight Foundation lead the popular Let Our Congress Tweet campaign which was the first Twitter- based petition to Congress advocating new rules to te Open House Project.

Before lawmakers could not officially embed a YouTube video on their official Web site, nor could they join in political conversations on web based blogs like Twitter.

Congratulations and let see if their will be more petitions using digital media tools.  Below is a widget of members of Congress who use Twitter.

Click Here:

Sunlight Foundation Widget

I have been in the Northwest Pacific area for 10 months now and I can truly say that there is a big difference from a majority blue state and a majority red state.  Originally from Tennessee and once a Washington DC/Northern Virginia resident I have to admit that never would I have imagined the “commonwealth” to be a possible swing state.  Reading a NY Times article recently highlighted the different strategies that both the Democratic and Republican parties are using in the state of Virginia.  It is clear that the McCain campaign’s national headquarters is in Arlington, VA and it is also visible that Democrats have opened 70 offices and deployed 200 paid organizers in the state that is slowly becoming a blue state.  

In 2004 Democrats did not have a strategy for Virginia and George Bush carried the state by 262,000 voters with little to no effort.  The state has not voted for a democratic presidential candidate in 44 years making this battleground state a key component for the Obama campaign.  When I lived in Arlington, VA I learned that even with its close proximity to the nations capitol this was not a state that is easy to influence. A rich history in America’s early development and a state that voted for the first African American governor is now facing a crucial decision of whether they are ready to continue its voting record or completely alternate their party allegiance.  

Read for more: www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/us/politics/12ground

I have been reading the updated edition of Joe Trippi book “The Revolution will not be televised” and have found some interesting facts about how politicians reacted to the Internet in the early stages.  In the book he explains how television took away from candidates having to really speak to the people they are asking to vote for them and instead gave audiences a 30 second biography or attack ad that further disconnected them and important issues.  He also mentioned how John Mccain’s 2000 Presidential bid was the first national campaign to attempt to organize voters with the Internet.  McCain managed to influence 40,000 people via the Internet but was unsuccessful in mobilizing them afterwards.

How much of this mistake did the McCain campaign learn in this election?

This is a humor approach to the controversial ownership of voting machines by private corporations.  Homer attempts to make a vote but the machine chooses the other candidate instead.  This is a video that can raise questions with voters that may have been lost when explained by political analyst.

Diebold Accidentally leaks results in 2008 election