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Project B Part A: Thesis on Politics

 Project B Part A: I found this interesting student thesis relating to political science; focusing on social media's effects mainly on the Obama McCaine Election of 2008. Please note that this research is over a decade old and may be prone to being outdated. 

The Effect of Social Media Networks On Political Marketing 

-By Sarah Khan in 2011

-Sarah primarily focused her thesis on how the rise of social media brought new forms of outlets for politicians to market their campaigns. Social Networking sites are used by more than half the US every day and so utilizing that would be a great advantage in the electoral forum. She used numerous examples from John McCain and Barack Obama's 2008 presidential election and studied statistics regarding their political content on social networks regarding forums, discussions, and propaganda. In addition, she looks at ethnicity, spending costs, user interactions on platforms, and other aspects that may affect online political conversations. 

Her conclusions: The most popular sites in the US are Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and Youtube. It gives politicians an easier way of communicating with their constituents and creating an emotional 1 on 1 connection. Those who use social media for campaigning will be the most successful. This Fact remains true today, as almost all funds for campaigns go directly to online advertising in media and television. She also found that those facing controversial scrutiny will have a negative impact and will be more vulnerable on these networks; such as being scrutinized by their opponents. 

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