I'll be honest: I didn't want to write a blog entry this week, I just wanted to waste my time on Facebook. However, both Representative Joe Wilson and Rob Miller have Facebook fan pages, so I decided to turn my procrastination into productivity and check out what kind of messages each candidate was sending to his fans. Wilson's Facebook page can be found here, and Miller's page is here.
As a side note, Wilson has 22,729 fans, while Miller has 5,510. One would think that such a large discrepancy in fans wouldn't bode well for Miller in the general election. However, two things should be noted: people in any part of the world can become “fans” of either candidate, and I have yet to see a study showing a correlation between a candidate's election results and the number of Facebook fans he or she has.
Miller tends to keep his Facebook status updates light, with many announcements about upcoming campaign events and photographs from previous ones, such as the picture above of him marching in a parade in Irmo, SC. If I were a voter in his district, I would be pleased that I was being offered so many opportunities to meet with Miller and get involved in the campaign, but I would be frustrated at the lack of depth and policy detail I found on his page.
The image above is the default image on Joe Wilson's Facebook fan page, and the rest of his page is similar in tone. Wilson posts many status updates and links with negative commentary about his political opponents, especially President Barack Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He even posted a video of himself speaking at a Fire Pelosi rally at the University of South Carolina. This harshly negative strategy could be very effective at getting his supporters motivated to vote and support his campaign. However, I could also see him alienating moderate voters who may support some of Obama and Pelosi's policy goals.
I think Wilson has the more effective page. It is clearly targeted at his most fervent conservative supporters, and I think it will tap into the anger many of them currently feel. I do not see anything on Miller's page that would similarly inspire liberals.
I found it really interesting that you focused on Facebook to discuss for this week's entry. I never even thought to look to see if the candidates for my district have facebook pages even though it seems like such an obvious thing to do! Considering how much of an influence and an effect facebook has in the technology savy world of today, I thought it was really interesting to look at how many follows each candidate had. I guarantee that the facebook follower numbers definitely have a correlation with the number of people voting for the candidates!
ReplyDeleteAlso, I really like how you added the links and the pictures to make it much more interesting.
I absolutely love the title to this blog entry! I agree with the comment above me: I never would have thought to look on facebook for my candidates. I found the extreme difference in number of fans for the candidates very interesting. I agree that the number of fans/followers each candidate has may represent the number of voters who support them to some degree; however, i do not think that this is an accurate portrayal in anyway. I like that you took into consideration that anyone in any part of the world can become a "fan." Also, some people just say yes to every invite to a group they receive on facebook, so there could definitely be error to these numbers.
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