Religious News - Candidates' Web use reflects philosophy

ArcaMax Publishing > Religion & Spirituality > Religious News

Your email address is safe with us. View our Privacy policy.

Wedding Guide:

Get advice on planning your big day with our wedding guide

The Funnies:

Get free jokes, comics, and more! See them all on
our funnies page

Books:

Read the classics online or by email. More details on the books page

Candidates' Web use reflects philosophy

The differences between the two presumptive U.S. presidential nominees on using the Internet could be age-related philosophy, Web strategists say.

"There is a gap between people who are digital natives and people who are digital immigrants. Obama clearly has an advantage over McCain in that he is a more comfortable user of these tools," Micah Sifry, founder of TechPresident.com, told the Politico.com.

TechPresident, a blog covering 2008 presidential candidates' use of the Web, notes Web "campaigns are a reflection of the candidate," Sifry said.

Phil Noble, founder of the non-partisan PoliticsOnline.com political news site, said the approaches Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., use reflect their philosophies about new technology.

"Obama has given people the tools to create and run their own campaigns," Noble said. "McCain is still a command-and-control, top-down candidate. Part of it is the difference in age."

Members of both parties agree that while candidates' Web sites have been more transactional until recently, Obama succeeded in relationship-building.

Obama's online network of supporters is huge: As of last week, my.barackobama.com social networking site had 926,000 members, and his Facebook site listed 946,568 supporters.

McCain, had 141,183 Facebook supporters, the Politico article said.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International.

This news arrived on: 06/17/2008

Share this Story