Social Networking Nation

February 8, 2008

Roughly every 40 years, a new generation adopts a transformative technology that has the power to revamp the way politics is done, according to Morley Winograd, a professor in the USC Marshall School of Business.

“Some presidential candidate or political party — or both — understands that this new technology provides a unique way to reach a new group of voters, and those voters, that generation, break decisively in favor of the party who reaches them that way and speaks to their attitudes and their beliefs,” Winograd says.

This time around, social networking sites are the medium, and Barack Obama is using them for his message. Obama brought one of the original founders of Facebook into his campaign, and they have raised a huge amount of money and organizational support through Facebook, Winograd points out. The site is giving Obama an advantage no one would have had in the past. “It’s kept him in the game,” Winograd says.

Hillary Clinton is far behind Obama when it comes to social networking, he adds.

And the Republicans are in worse shape. “Republicans have had a terrible time adjusting their technologies — which are very, very good on talk radio and email — to adapt to this new platform, and they’re very short of money as a result,” Winograd says. Even Mitt Romney, who was at the leading edge among Republicans, had a Web site that stressed one-way communications like downloadable brochures, not the two way-interaction that appeals to the Millennial generation, Winograd says.

Morley Winograd is co-author, with Michael D. Hais, of the new book Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube and the Future of American Politics (Rutgers University Press, March 2008). He is executive director of the USC Marshall School’s Institute for Communication Technology Management, and a former senior policy adviser to Vice President Al Gore.

Resources for Reporters

For video of Winograd discussing his book’s findings and their implications for the 2008 election, click here.

Winograd is available for live or taped interviews through USC Marshall’s free VYVX or ISDN lines. He can be reached at winograd@marshall.usc.edu or (213) 740-0981.