Using the internet to win votes

Just as radio and television revolutionized the presidential election process in earlier decades, today the “new media” are making a significant imprint on how campaigns are conducted by candidates, covered journalists,and evaluated by the voters. While the same basic goals for campaigns apply, the tools to accomplish these goals have expanded.

Since I have been recently working on the topic of new media incorporated in politics, concerning mainly election campaigns, issue awareness and citizens mobilization during Barack Obama campaign, I also wanted to approach different example- winning voice using the internet in the face of forthcoming elections in UK.
Firstly, I visited the most common UK website, which is of course, BBC news. They created a special section about the election, where people can read breaking news and where they can also vote.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/election_2010/8608320.stm
When you follow the link above, you can find some interesting information about incorporating new media UK campaign. They number most common of them:
-youtube
-social networking sites (twitter, facebook).
Now, the politicians are trying to use all of these tools to connect with the voters in different ways. However, the key weapon here is google- the parties are competing to buy up search terms next to which they can place ads. " If somebody clicks on ur ad, it is clearly something of relevance".

Facebook is also big player in the election.

It all started with the presidential election 2008 in US and as Obama's example shows, it was effective. Undoubtedly, new media is a way of engaging the youth in politcs, cause new media is the area which in majority belongs to them. However, in my opinion, the politicians should remember not to overestimate the value of new media, and still use the traditional methods.