The internet has recently encouraged individuals with the same opinions, or no opinions whatsoever, to come together to either make their opinions stronger or, for the ones with no opinion, begin to take a side. Throughout the years, the power of this conformity has flourished, to the point where online communities could change a person’s beliefs all together.
For example, the presidential debates last year had spawned a variety of slanderous, sometimes entertaining, forms of media that expressed messages about the candidates. These messages could be positive (in favor of the candidate) or negative (against the candidate.) On the class Youtube Genre document, I added the genre called Funny/Entertaining Politics. This genre is meant to either poke fun at the different candidates by exploiting their flaws, or it is meant to simply add some fun to the otherwise boring popularity contest known as the election. Below are some of the videos I added.
Mitt Romney Sings “The Real Slim Shady”
Epic Rap Battles of History: Obama vs. Romney
Obama Sings “Replay”
I noticed that a good amount of these entertaining political videos on Youtube (and even the media in other online communities like Tumblr) tended to be in favor of Obama. Could this have possibly contributed to Obama’s success in the election by influencing the voter turnout among Youtube’s main age demographic? Hmm..interesting concepts worth looking into if I were ever a Sociologist.
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