Internet Effects on Presidential Campaigns

nickdog writes "The upcoming presidential election will probably be the first to be significantly influenced by the Internet. According to a study by Media Quotient, Bill Bradley and John McCain are in the best position to win over voters who rely on Internet news sources."

Comments

Media Quotient missed the boat

[dsplat]

The Internet is a wild card. A lot of us aren't listening to what we are being told we will be doing. I've already considered McCain and Bradley. I won't bother to go into a lengthy discussion of them here. It isn't relevant.

I am not a statistic. I am not a number. I am a minority of one and so is each and every person reading this. Don't let the pollsters tell you what you are likely to do. Go out and read the candidates' web sites. Read the candidate comparisons that are going to appear all over the web over the next 10 months. And make an intelligent decision.

Too many media outlets pretend that nothing matters in a presidential race each the Democratic and Republican Party nominees and the photo ops. They don't dig. They tell the stories that will attract the biggest audiences. The net not only doesn't have to do that, there is really no way to constrain it to do that.

I suggested it here before, and I'll suggest it again. It would be interesting to see Slashdot polls about how Slashdot readers will be voting. I would be particularly interested if a few of us, and I'll volunteer, post links to useful web sites with analyses by a variety of interest groups of the candidates' positions. I'm as interested in what the people I wouldn't trust with a soggy match think of the candidates as I am in what the people I like think of them.

Let's give them participatory democracy and see what happens. I bet there are candidates who will love it. It will attract the underdogs, and probably the lunatic fringe as well... but what a show.