I’ve spotted a couple of interest titbits that help illustrate how what is happening in social media and web 2.0 is changing the way we conduct and experience politics and business.
The first is ‘Web Puts Dog-Whistle Politics on a Leash’ by Ari Melber in The Nation. It proposes that negative ‘dog whistle’ campaign messages designed to subliminally influence voters when disseminated by traditional media are now be analysed and exposed by social media, thus reducing the effectiveness.
The second is a Hitwise Intelligence map showing swing states in the US presidential race. It compares a New York Times electoral map showing polling data of the ‘states in play’ with a Hitwise map of traffic from each state to Obama and McCain’s websites.
In this map, Hitwise is showing representation index for the two candidate sites to indicate likelihood of internet users in each state to visit that website (over 100 means more likely, below 100 means less likely).
In the "tossup" states of Nevada, Missouri and Florida, Obama is leading McCain. In Indiana, Ohio and North Carolina McCain is ahead. Florida is the closest – with Internet users in Florida 2.89% more likely to visit Obama’s website than McCain’s.
