Obama's use of internet marketing to win the presidency

Although I am not a fan of President Obama, his ability to use internet marketing, including internet marketing methods, helped him win this election. The world goes to the internet to learn what it needs to, in today’s culture. More so, the internet provides an easy, affordable way to reach millions of people every single day. No other medium offers this. Obama had his own website...and besides giving information about his campaign the very purpose of this site was to get people to subscribe to his email newsletter, which was a great way to interact with millions of other people who were in agreement with obama's different policies. He even had a profile made on Twitter and Facebook! The fastest and easiest way for today's youth to be informed on politics (or any subject) is through these social networks, since they are the 2 most popular. This was such a success for Obama in gaining a large number of younger followers in his campaign...a major force in helping him win the presidential election... Oh oh and one last thing...he has a BLOG TOO. Here it is: http://www.barackobama-2012.blogspot.com/ check it out, it's pretty cool

The Radicalization of Zeke Spier

I believe the author sees this "new form of social capital" as the internet as opposed to the "old fashioned" face-t0-face interaction. As the title states, the radicalization of Zeke Spier can be contributed to the internet and how it impacted him. Predictions of radicalization emphasize the Internet’s technical capacities while downplaying the importance of people’s behavior. Though the Internet could allow inaccurate information to travel farther and faster than previously possible, the shift from protest to riot is dependent on people’s actions. Just how Zeke used the internet to quickly organize and immediately get in contact with those with similar positions on a political subject as his. "Using the internet, he prepared himself for political engagement, organized a demonstration, and assisted in his own defense in the criminal justice system"(99). As the text suggests, these new technologies are also facilitating the maintenance of geographically dispersed face-to-face networks. Zeke was able to communicate with people all over the country in a matter of seconds in order to get get a group of people to come to an organized protest. This is something that would have taken almost weeks longer to facilitate if it was based on only face-to-face contact.

My Internet Relationship Experience

This is something I've rarely spoken about but I feel it would be good to share since we're currently discussing internet relationships. My freshman year of college, I attended Susquehanna University. I was young, niave, and didn't even have a facebook account created. I made some friends up at school and was persuaded to created both the facebook and myspace accounts just to see what would happen. Shortly after creating these accounts I had gotten a message from a guy on my myspace. Although Myspace is different than an internet chatroom because you are able to see the person's pictures (if they are indeed real pictures of that person) as well as their location, and age. The guy's profile said he was in Lewisburg, pa at Bucknell University. He asked me how I liked school (I had on my profile that I was attending Susquehanna U.) and that he was just looking up some friends and he saw that I was close to Bucknell and he wanted to introduce himself. To me, I felt he was harmless. A guy who went to a prestigious school like Bucknell means he's a good guy I can talk to, right? Well needless to say, I had never had a boyfriend or any sort of relationship before, and the fact that a boy was even talking to me was intriging. So, we ended up talking for hours almost every day, just as Alexis did with CRaig. We exchanged AOL names, and we would talk for hours on end. Then came the day when he asked if he could take me out to dinner and a movie. I was very hesitent to go just because I'd never actually met him in person, I didn't know how he sounded on the phone or anything. AFter days of putting it off, I decided to go, only if he came to campus to pick me up (he was a senior at Bucknell and I was a freshman) so all my friends could get a good look at him and we could decide if it was a safe move haha. Well anyway, he came, met my friends, and I ended up going out with him that night after months of online talking. I'll never forget that night because the movie was absolutely horrible...hahah it was called Elizabethtown. Well where I'm trying to go with this is that we became a couple shortly after and were together for a little over 2 years. I can say that he was my first love, and an amazing boyfriend. It's funny to think that my parents still believe I met him at a party at Bucknell and not through the internet! If they only knew haha But I can attest that meeting someone in person and starting a relationship can be completely different than meeting them online, just from personal experience. My last semester at Lehigh, I met a great guy and we dated the whole spring semester, and I even just went to meet his parents in Connecticut last weekend, and I can say that our relationship is completely different than my first just because it wasn't based on being online. We never talk online, only over the phone, and I think that being able to see the person you're dating is a very important aspect of maintaining a healthy relationship.

Love in the Internet

I found Alexis's and Craig's relationship very interesting. It's almost hard to believe that two people could meet in an internet chat room and become "soul mates." I think that it would be hard to maintain an internet relationship if not able to see the other person. The "love" that Alexis talks about and the feelings she felt for Craig when she first started talking to him are hard to call real feelings because it's not the same as meeting a person face to face and having feelings for them. You might think that a person is someone completely different than who they really are. The internet can change people...someone can pretend to be a totally different person. Alexis is lucky that Craig turned out to be "normal" once they first met. So, what is it about online chat room environments that would facilitate this love relationship? Well, like I said before, a person can completely change their personality online. They could do anything to get you to like them. And without the face to face interaction and stereotyping and judging on looks, strong feelings can be created between individuals.