A Friend Request from Barack Obama.

I love YouTube. It provides me with endless hours of entertainment. I can jump on to quickly view a funny clip or see a piece of a news story that I may have missed during the day or even watch a whole episode or series of a TV show all with the same application. It seems to be such a normal part of life now, one of the most visited sites on my computer and tabbed into my browser for easy access, it makes me wonder how I ever lived without it sometime. Even more than that, I don't know if I can remember exactly when it became such a huge phenomenon.

I think there are a lot of people in the same boat as me on this one, so it was hardly surprising when everyone started wanting a piece of this 'global exposure' action. My friends have done it, my idols have done it, even one of my teachers at school did it and so I guess it was only a natural progression for politician to do it as part of their political campaigns.

So in a country like America, where it isn't compulsory to vote, how much of an impact does putting a presidential candidate out in cyberspace have on a election? For the 2008 election John Edwards became the first US presidential candidate to announce his candidacy online via his website johnedwards.com. A short time afterwards, there was controversy surrounding the choice to place this clip on his own site as oppose to loading it to YouTube. In any case the use of the internet was a new and unique way to not only go about that particular announcement but also illustrated the great potential in the internet to reach voters.

If you go to johnedwards.com a short scroll down the right hand of his page leads potential voters to a section title "Connect With The Campaign". Under this heading is a myriad of social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Flickr and YouTube. Barack Obama, who I feel utilised social media to great effect, has connections to social media plastered all over his site. From his Organizing For America Blog, to "Obama Mobile". Users can even create their own MyBarackObama.com which enables voters to participate in online discussions, find events and tell their own stories in blogs. It really isn't any wonder that he was elected into office after viewing this site. Aside from the incredibly welcoming design and layout, by allowing the informal interaction of his followers Obama appears to have allowed them into his life, allowed a closeness between himself and his public that even someone like me, an outsider looking in, can feel a part of.

But just because Obama made it work doesn't mean that there isn't danger involved in creating such a high level of exposure. With such exposure can come vulnerability. In 2008, Republican Vice Presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin was the subject of a comedy skit on Saturday Night Live where Tina Fey imitated Palin alongside Amy Poehler as Hilary Clinton. The video of the performance went viral and today has over 10 million views and while Palin appeared on the show in another skit with Fey (a show that achieved phenomenal ratings), I still tend to agree with the media commentators who suggest that, in part, Fey's portrayal eliminated Palin's opportunity to be accepted as a legitimate candidate.

These examples certainly seem to illustrate how the use of social media outlets in politics can make or break a candidate and when "most campaigns do everything in their power to control every element of the candidate's image and message, from the clothes he wears to each word out of his mouth" (Howard Dean's campaign manager Joe Trippi, 2004), the internet - a place of freedom of speech and anonymous defamation - can be a very dangerous place.