by KATHARINE JARMUL

Social networking sites, such as MySpace and Facebook, have entered the political landscape in a big way — promoting online voter registration and dedicating areas of the network for political discussion and comment on the upcoming presidential primaries. But users are going one step further — using their own networks to find like-minded individuals and attract undecided voters to their cause.

Non-official MySpace pages that promote candidates, political parties and specific ideologies are proliferating. A search of MySpace pages that include the name Hillary Clinton returns more than 45,000 separate users. Utilizing social network service technology that connects more than 65 million people, users can post bulletins, blogs, group messages, forums, banners, interactive video and even campaign contribution gadgets to help support their favorite candidate or party. And with user-friendly publishing, such sites are attracting a diverse crowd.

However, it is still unclear if these sites will have any effect on voting behavior.

Obama battles for friends on MySpace. An interview with Joe Anthony, the man who popularized the presidential Obama on MySpace only to have the page stripped from his control after he gained the presidential candidate over 160,000 friends. Audio by Lagan Sebert. Photo courtesy of Campaign for Barack Obama.

William Long, creator of an unofficial Rudy Giuliani MySpace page, believes the “cool factor” is an important piece of MySpace political involvement. His page includes pictures of the New York Republican at baseball games, colorful and hip-looking “Join Rudy 2008” banners, as well as an in-depth biography of Giuliani’s career.

“MySpace is a social center. It’s considered cool,” he said. Long said young people are willing to look at politicians who are on MySpace whom their friends befriend.

“Everyone is a voyeur on MySpace,” he said. “Everyone wants to know about what others are doing.”

Rachel Happe, research manager for International Data Corporation’s digital business marketplace, said that MySpace and sites like it allow for “serendipitous discovery.” Social networking has certain potential that official Web sites and search engines don’t allow, she said.

“People don’t wake up in the morning and look for something. They talk with their family, read the paper, and talk with a neighbor. It’s a more natural way to find things [than using a search engine or going to a specific site],” Happe said. “On social networks, people bring [information about topics I like] naturally to me.”

But Bruce Bimber, a political science professor and co-author of the book “Campaigning Online,” said the effects of the Internet on elections and voting are chaotic and hard to determine.

“So far, there hasn’t been any evidence that young people are being attracted to politics because of the Internet,” Bimber said. “A long-standing feature of political behavior is that people become more engaged as they grow older and that’s a function of habits that are completely independent of the technology.”

Still, MySpace political pages are a way for users to casually and privately peruse different political platforms through their existing social network. But political pages are doing more than just bringing information to users who are connected to them; many are actively searching for new people to link and influence.

When Brandon Savage of Milwaukee started his
True Democrat MySpace group, he hoped it would “appeal to the 70 million Americans who don’t vote.” He said he would often get messages from people wondering about the beliefs of the Democratic Party. His blog has been read over 3,500 times in the past year.

“So many people are just prone to turning off their political receptor and turning off to politics in general. So many people couldn’t tell you the difference between what a Republican and a Democrat was,” he said. “[Using my site] has opened their eyes to what a Democratic administration could bring to the average citizen.”

Savage warns against complete dependence on online campaigns. “Grassroots activism is still the most powerful form of activism,” he said. “The person-to-person contact is more effective.”

Virginia resident Christopher Breeden, designer for Hardcore Conservative MySpace and a George W. Bush Fan MySpace, said his site expanded almost immediately once it went online. The Bush site, which displays images of Bush in a “Super-W” outfit, an animation of Hillary Clinton as an alien body snatcher and numerous YouTube clips of speeches and Sept. 11 remembrances, has more than 9,000 friends.

“At first I asked my friends to join,” he said. “Now I get 86 friend requests a day.” Breeden is even contacted by corporate contributers that make Republican or conservative products, and conservative media personalities who want to network.

On his George Bush fan site, Breeden has engaged his network to begin posting information about whom they will support for the 2008 presidential bid and why.

He’s not pushing his favorite contender on his fan site: “The party would do better than me. They’re going to vote if they’re passionate,” he said.

Political analysts will be watching to see whether social networking sites influence voting. Exit polls might help determine whether these sites are a viable means to attract voters or just another way to find like-minded people.