10:00 am: Life goes on, even on election day

On the surface of the day, things appear to be normal. Students are going to class (hopefully), teachers are teaching (hopefully), and the leaf blower machine is making a ruckus around campus (necessarily). It’s a good day to be here at Southern Oregon University — like pretty much all days.

But below the surface of this day is a feeling of excitement. A few students gather outside the Stevenson Union with their signs and dancing ballot box. Text messages come in from students talking about what they will be doing later in the day. A student thoughtfully fills out a ballot, while others stop by the Voters Coalition table to pick up some “swag” or stuff. There are vote buttons and lollipops here — a nice combination. I’ve always thought election day should be a national holiday like Thanksgiving or the Super Bowl. It seems just as important a day. We could all take the day off to eat, drink, and gather around our wide screen televisions to grumble or cheer on our candidates. What a day we could have.

Jen'r Horste fills out her ballot in front of the Stevenson Union Tuesday.

Economics Professor Doug Gentry asks, “In most other states people have to stand in line at a polling place. Yet some say that the physical act of going to vote builds a stronger sense of community. They argue that Oregon’s system of mail ballots takes that away from us. What do you think?”

Having the day off would be a good way to build community. In Oregon, the convenience of knowing your vote is collected in a less technologically dependent form may be comforting for some. From what we’ve seen on television and the Web, waiting in line to vote may be a form of community building, but not necessarily the most effective in terms of interaction. Instead of waiting in line at a polling place, people in Oregon are using their time in different ways. For example, our students are attending at least 8 or more election night gatherings. Although these communities are pretty homogeneous ideologically, at least people exercise their right to assemble.

One thing that I truly believe helps to bring people together is the use of new media such as text messaging and social networking. It’s a much different form of community though. Online communities are not the same as face-to-face interactions, but they are still a public space where conversations happen.

Student election coverage begins

More than 40 journalism university and seminar students gathered monday in the Stevenson Union at Southern Oregon University to discuss upcoming election coverage. Beginning in the late afternoon tuesday, students will be reporting from more than 9 separate locations throughout the Rogue Valley. throughout the evening students will use e-mail, text messaging, ,instant messaging, and social networking to report on the local races as well as the general feeling of the elections in the community.

Rogue Valley Television staff rehearses for election coverage. From (left), Brandon Givens, Cynthia Salbato and Paul Steinle.

Social Networking, Young Voters, and the Elections

Here are some of the stories we are tracking concerning new media technologies and the elections.

Web hands voters power

Modern technology that enables voters to better share the experience harks back to long ago. In Colonial times, people would ride in from the settlements to vote and then wait with townfolk until the ballots were counted, says Kate Kelly, a historian who wrote Election Day: An American Holiday, An American History. With the invention of the telegraph, masses of people waiting for results would gather outside their city’s newspaper. The television age changed that. (Baltimore Sun).

The country has never seen social-networking technology come into play, particularly on the grass-roots level, as it has during this election, says Sue Barnes, a professor of communication and associate director of the Lab for Social Computing at Rochester Institute of Technology.

Politics and social networks: Voters make the connection.

Online social networking sites — socnets, from community blogs to YouTube — are changing how the members of this class get their news, whom they trust to provide it and how they act on it. Whatever the source, they comfortably and routinely comment on the news, reproduce it, then forward it to relatives, friends, co-workers and, yes, strangers. (Washington Post).

Directly connected Democracy

The presidential campaigns of Senators John McCain and Barack Obama have taken notice of technology’s reach, using social networking Web sites to connect with tech-savvy voters.
(San Jose Mercury News).

Amid gloom, young see vote as act of hope

The candidate’s face is ubiquitous on social networking sites like Facebook.com and in YouTube videos. The campaign has relied on text messages to communicate with voters. They stumbled over the initial plan to announce the vice-presidential pick directly to supporters’ cell phones and e-mails, but found the short blurbs are an effective way to advertise early voting locations. (Associated Press).

On politics: The new republican party

Through the use of integrating social networking online into organizing volunteers at the local level through the myBarackObama.com site, the campaign has empowered individuals nationwide to create their organic, locally formed Obama campaign teams.

The technique eschews the usual top-down organization of a political campaign or state party structure, replacing it with a horizontal organization chart where volunteers have access to an incredible amount of voter identification information and Obama message points through the campaign’s social network. Wired magazine laid out the strategy in a revelatory article last week. (Nashville City Paper).