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Is the Media Destroying Politics?

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Somebody's Running Somebody's Not

As we discussed yesterday in class, when it comes to reporting on the 2012 elections, many races have begun.  What is being covered is not the issues which the candidates who are running care about, but rather what is being reported on the NY Times Politics Page is who is running and who is not running and how they made their announcement.

On another note, I find it interesting that Senator John Thune announced that he is not running on his Facebook page.  Not via a press release, not via a televised or radio address, but rather on his Facebook page.  Is there something wrong with this, or is Facebook taking on a larger and larger role in the political world.

3 comments:

  1. Facebook was originally just taking over the social world when it began, but as you point out it has now reached the political world.

    I think it's extremely unprofessional that Senator Thune published this on facebook rather than a press release. Although it may be true that more people will see it on facebook than on the news or in a written article, I still think that this was a poor decision.

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  2. I agree with Jamie. I do think that social media is a great way of promoting an image or reaching voters. But Thune choosing Facebook as his initial way of announcing he would not be running for candidacy seems extremely inappropriate. It's not a Student Council position, whether a person is or is not running, there is proper etiquette to make the announcement.

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  3. I do agree that its unprofessional to announce his non-candidacy on Facebook, but in his defense, its not like the campaign was well underway and he was a major player in the race, the races have just begun and I think he was just making it clear that he wasn't running not that he was pulling out of a race he was already heavily involved in.

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