http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-myspace-politics.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

In the New York Times article “Myspace Launches Politics Channel,” the plan for presidential candidates to come out on the Impact Channel on Myspace in an attempt to reach the younger online generation of voters was unveiled.  Political websites already exist, but this channel aims to directly target internet savvy voters by not only getting their attention but also having tools for registration and fund raising.  Myspace creates a social network where people not only keep connections with existing friends, but are able to make new friends based on their webpages; triadic closure of two people occurs through a mutual friend as well.  With features like blog posting and bulletin boards people use Myspace to share information and ideas or to just voice themselves.  Each webpage serves as a node, while friendships serve as the edges connecting them, creating a self contained network within the internet.

Presidential candidates will try to rally support by taking advantage of the already established social network and use it as both as a social and information network.  Once the candidates acquire friends that truly politically support them, they will use these friendships to spread information to emanating out further along the network.  Closure will begin and the reach of the information being spread will grow farther and stronger.  This strategy helps to narrow the focus down to a smaller contingency of voters.  If someone types in a search on political information on a search engine many different pages may pop up from the entire internet; however, Myspace is a self contained network, and if the plan works successfully then many particular people will be exposed to the presidential race.  These individuals might not have been involved enough to vote, but this may sway them to vote simply because of their connections to friends who are politically active online and will pull them into the scene.