Quantcast

Attention, Candidates: MySpace Members Vote

Heather Havenstein, Computerworld

  • 0 Yes
  • 0 No

MySpace hafs kicked off a series of monthly polls to get the views of its users on the upcoming presidential election. The first poll revealed that users of the social network tend to register as independents, are likely to vote in presidential elections and are very concerned with the state of efforts to thwart terrorism.

The results of that first "Impact Presidential Poll," released Thursday, showed that MySpace users are 139 percent more likely to have visited an online chat room featuring public officials or political candidates in the past 30 days than the general adult online population. MySpace members are also 29 percent more likely to have looked up campaign information online within the past day than other adults.

In addition, 86 percent of the voting age MySpace users polled said that they are "extremely likely" or "likely" to vote in the 2008 presidential election. About 27 percent of those over age 18 defined their political affiliation as Independent, according to the poll. In addition 25 percent of MySpace users who voted for Bush in 2004 said they will vote Democratic in 2008, while 18 percent of John Kerry voters in 2004 said they will vote Republican in the next election.

Both Republican and Democratic MySpace users agree that the war on terror and the economy are the key issues in the election. The poll found that 36 percent of the Democratic respondents and 38 percent of the Republicans said that the "War on Terror" is the most important issue in the election. Meanwhile, 29 percent of the Democratics polled and 28 percent of the Republican listed the economy as the most important issue.

For the poll, MySpace surveyed about 900 of its members from Nov. 28 to Dec. 4.

MySpace will hold its own presidential primary election for its users on Jan 1 and Jan. 2.

The polls and MySpace primary are the latest moves by the social networking site to involve its users in the election process. In August, MySpace announced that it will partner with the MTV television network to produce a series of presidential dialogues with its users. So far, candidates John Edwards, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) have participated in those efforts.

Computerworld
For more enterprise computing news, visit Computerworld. Story copyright © 2007 Computerworld Inc. All rights reserved.

  • Recommend this story?
  • 0 Yes
    0 No

"Attention, Candidates: MySpace Members Vote" Comments

Related Tech Industry Articles

  • CDW Virtualization Center What is Virtualization and how can it help you save money? Click here to find out.
  • Cisco Small Business Center Does your network give your business an advantage. Click here to find out...
  • HP Ink Center Bring improved color and brilliance to your printed material. Visit the Resource Center for more info...

PC World's Marketplace

PC World's Free Whitepapers

Name City
Address 1 State Zip
Address 2 E-mail (optional)