Facebook continues its campaign for global media domination, announcing a partnership with ABC News designed to bring the campaign trail to the top of the news feed.
The goal, as the New York Times reported Monday, is to draw Facebook users (read: 18-29 year olds) into political coverage, creating a web of information and opinion for audiences younger and more tech savvy than those still watching the nightly news (!) (read: AARP members).
ABC News President David Westin, whose Facebook account is viewable only to “friends,” told the Times that the partnership hopes to tap the constant buzzing discourse of the online community. “There are debates going on at all times within Facebook. This allows us to participate in those debates, both by providing information and by learning from the users.”
The zinger in the partnership so far is a co-sponsored debate scheduled to coincide with the primary kickoff in early January. For now ABC reporters are encouraging their “followers” (a weirdly anachronistic alternative to the “friend” category at the heart of Facebook) to take social-network stalking to new levels by posting frequent updates on their ABC/Facebook profiles.
Sunlen Miller, ABC’s off-air Obama campaign reporter, for example, seems to post everything she can think of, from links to ABC News blog posts and constant status updates (“Sunlen is filing a story at Dunken Donuts”; “Sunlen is getting ready for the foreign policy forum Tuesday”; etc.) to campaign photos and musings on her shoes (she wishes she had new ones).
Facebook’s ability to increase civic participation is yet to be seen. Sure, the site now allows users to buddy up with political candidates and to embrace political causes. But for every single co-ed who posts a shout out on Mitt Romney’s wall or relentlessly invites friends to join the “Save Darfur” campaign, you’ll still have ten co-eds playing at the digital version of playground romance by “throwing sheep” at their crushes and marring their own political future by posting pictures rife with keg stands and body shots.
To me, the project’s value lies not in the promise of social networking, but in the youthful energy it breathes into the hum-drum that is traditional campaign coverage. Sunlen’s posts, for example, are candid and casual; her frenzied status updates give us a peek into the roller-coaster ride of the election season. She’s stressed, tired, sometimes downright giddy as she reports on the good, the bad and the downright silly (Obama doesn’t cook on Thanksgiving, but he swears he helps with the cleaning). It’s all delivered in real time, typos and all, unpackaged and, in that way, recognizable to young people as (could it be?) real communication.
Tags: abcnews, social networks