Social Networking and Elections/Voter behavior

http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2010/02/28/130641_tasmania-news.html

The link above is to a story from Feb. 28th highlighting the Tasmanian election in Australia, and how the candidates are using Facebook to reach voters. In summary, the incumbent David Bartlett has almost 4 times as many friends on Facebook as his challenger, Will Hodgman. According to the article, this is due to the fact that Bartlett has been on Facebook for a while during his term in office, reaching out to constituents and updating his page personally. He isn't afraid to express himself frankly and clearly, and gets quite a few comments from constituents who want to voice their opinions. The article brings up an interesting point about the possible negative consequences of a candidate having social networking pages, particularly if that person's campaign updates the page rather than the candidate himself. It says that voters are turned off by policy updates via Twitter, or generic campaign status updates on Facebook. Social networking in political campaigns relies heavily on the voters believing that they are personally interacting with the candidates. This article is interesting because it is yet another example of a candidate finding success on Facebook, but it attributes that success to the fact that David Bartlett personally manages and updates his page. If studied, this could have impact on how campaigns consider running their social networking sites in the future.

-Kevin Shaffer