INTERNET AND POLITICS TOGETHER AS ONE CAMERON FLESCH MAY 18 TH, 2011 WORLD HISTORY PERIOD 8

BACKGROUND Politicians and government officials have been making and passing certain laws against Internet and cellular devices. But even some of them are making their own accounts like Facebook accounts, and Twitter accounts, and some of them have even made blogs so people can comment on them. Facebook: a social networking service and website launched in February, Fun fact: as of January 2011, Facebook has more than 600 million active users. Twitter: Produced in March 2006, enables users to send and read messages called tweets that are like text messages and each post is up to 140 characters. Fun fact: 200 million users, and generates 65 million tweets per day (estimated).

ARGUMENT The Internet’s networks, such as Twitter and Facebook and cell phones and blogs, provide opportunities for political campaigns to spread their ides to large audiences very quickly and efficiently.

WORLD INTERNET USERS Look at the all the Internet users around the world. As you can see, the U.S. uses Internet very significantly. The really dark blue indicates the countries that have the most internet users. The light greenish type color is the least amou nt of internet users.

REGIONAL INTERNET USERS Asia 42.6% Europe 24.1% North America 14.6% Latin America/Caribbean 10.3% Africa 3.9% Middle East 3.3% Oceania/Australia 1.2% In September 2009

SUPPORTING IDEAS In 2008, 74%of Internet users went online during the election for presidency In November 2010 elections, about 22% of online Americans used social networking such as Twitter for politics 8% of users posted political content using Twitter for politics 7% of online users friended or followed their politician 1% used Twitter to follow elections as they were happening In 2008, 45% of people talked or shared their ideas and opinions about politics on the phone 8% used text messaging

SUPPORTING IDEAS 8% of online users were on blogs, either theirs or someone else’s 2% of total voters wrote about their voting or what they did on blogs 4% commented on someone else’s blog

QUIZ QUESTIONS 1. Which region had the most internet users in September 2009? 2. What percent of people actually friended politicians? 3. As of January 2011, how many active users are there of Facebook?