The Chronicle of Higher Education
Campaign U.

May 5, 2008

Is Facebook Becoming Passe as a Political Tool?

Facebook, the online social-networking site popular with college students and recent graduates, has not lived up to a lot of its initial hype as an effective political tool, argues Colin Delany in an article posted on the Web site techpresident.com.

“We’ve now seen more than a year of intense use of social-networking sites by the U.S. presidential campaigns (and even longer use by issue-advocacy groups), which gives us a solid base of information and experience to judge just how effective Facebook is as a political tool,” he wrote.

Mr. Delany outlines the limits of Facebook’s effectiveness for presidential campaigns. He asks whether Facebook’s moment in the sun as a hot political tool has passed and, if so, what that might mean for the future of social-networking sites for online political organizing — and for Facebook itself.

Sara Hebel | Posted on Monday May 5, 2008 | Permalink