Politics and Technology

So in my search to find information about politics and technology, I found a site literally entitled Politics and Technology. I thought this site might provide some interesting information. The subtitle on the page explained how the site would explore how candidates are using the net as an organization tool. Although the page had little information on the presidential campaigns going on now, i.e. McCain and Obama, it did have one helpful link that pointed me in the right direction.

On the Politics and Technology website was a link to a site called Blue State Digital. This particular site uses online tools such as, individual fundraising, online advocacy, outbound email, social networking, and content management to help make internet communities available for candidates, cause-related organizations, and other companies. Blue State Digital acts as a broad outreach to help gain public support for candidates and their organizations for specific causes and issues.

What I liked most about the site was that it offered case studies of people that had used BSD successfully. One such case study was about the Obama campaign. His campaign used the site to fundraise, motivate social networkings, and to promote events. BSD stated that the Obama campaign made full use of the fundraising tools the site had to offer, helping to raise over 17 million dollars. The campaign also used a toold known as True Match; new donars were brough to gether with their matching donar personally enabling them to meet and discuss their committment to the cause. From the information I gathered from the case study BSD also acts as a kind of registration site that allows authorized campaign managers to set up and promote events and other fundraising activities. It also allows them to do such thigns as manage community content and blog programs. BSD also tabulates statistics automatically so that managers can monitor performance and make modifications to maximize results from using the site.

I guess I really never considered how the use of technology plays a role in todays politics. It only makes sense that political figures would use technology as it has become such an integral part of peoples lives today. It is so much more efficient and allows campaign managers and the candidates to reach a greater population of people and stay more connected to them. From my investigations, BSD appears to be doing a great job at providing numerous tools to allow political campaigns to do just that.