As Facebook continues to take college campuses and high schools by storm, new applications are emerging – going beyond tagging photos and poking friends.

Aside from Facebook’s foremost function as a social networking site, it recently began to serve as a launch pad for election reports and the exchange of political opinions.

With the presidential election less than a year away, Facebook and ABC News partnered up to introduce the U.S. Politics application, which gives users a new way to learn and debate about hot-button campaign issues.

Other features in the U.S. Politics application include a display showing user-supported candidates, a range of debate groups and polls measuring how candidates are performing. Its newest feature also allows members to access news from ABC reporters who post Facebook reports, along with regular political news updates and videos.

The site also works to increase voter registration.

Grant Reeher, an associate professor of political science at Syracuse University, said the new Facebook application might facilitate participation in the election, especially for young adults who might not be interested otherwise.

‘Putting information sources where younger people and young adults travel more frequently on the Internet…is more likely to get their attention, so you can draw more people in,’ Reeher said.

The application’s latest feature with ABC News includes notes, bulletins, photos and videos from 13 ABC reporters. These reporters provide up-to-the-minute posts on their Facebook profiles about the presidential candidates they tail.

Members of the Facebook application can then exchange their thoughts in a section of the application called Debate Groups. Blogs are also available to application subscribers.

Reeher said the application sounds like it would be helpful as a supplement for news, but will not be able to garner an increase in political participation on its own.

‘I don’t think that a citizen gets much useful political information from the television news, except with a possible exception of news hour on PBS,’ Reeher said, ‘We are better served by print media, and you can also get good information from sites from candidates themselves.’

Grassroots campaigns are ‘larger and organized much better,’ Reeher added. ‘Simply providing information can help people do things, but we need more concrete efforts to get people participating.’

Currently, the U.S. Politics application features debate groups that exchange opinions on issues such as Pakistan’s role in the war on terror, LGBT rights, global warming, the troop levels in Iraq, illegal immigration and gun control.

Thousands of people voted for a particular side of an issue, and the most popular issues received about 8,000 to 10,000 votes.

Danny Hayes, an assistant professor of political science, said the Internet is becoming a bigger part of campaigns, so the application is a good idea and could increase the number of younger, Internet-savvy people involved.

He also said, however, that the effects of the application are not yet clear, and it might only be used by the people who would be involved without Facebook stepping in.

‘It is an easier way to get information about candidates, which is good because the more informed voters are, the better things work,’ Hayes said. ‘But the people who are going to go to this and take advantage of it are probably the people who already have some interest. The information rich will just get a little richer, as opposed to providing others who wouldn’t already have it.’

Dan Rausa, a sophomore history and biology major at the University of Virginia, agreed it is unlikely that the site will attract people uninterested in politics.

‘I know about 10 or so people using it. They are good friends that one, are very political, or two, feel strongly about issues that the candidate supports,’ he said.

Rausa also said he does not see the U.S. Politics application having an effect on elections because most Facebook users are the same people who often fail to participate in elections.

‘As sad as it may be, I feel that the use of the application is only among people who care and who will vote,’ Rausa said, ‘So basically, I don’t think it would expand election knowledge very much since the people who use it are the ones who care already.’

SU sophomore Zac Gorman said though there is some truth to this, it is not necessarily correct to say that only people previously involved with politics will adopt the application to their Facebook routine.

Gorman said it seems that a lot of his friends added the application, including many of whom he did not expect to be concerned with politics.

‘It will get more young people involved with politics, and looking at the recent polls, a lot of people do get involved,’ the entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises major said. ‘But a lot of people also write stupid opinions that don’t make any sense. Someone has a discussion called ‘Would Jesus Vote Republican?’ That’s stupid.’

Gorman does not participate in the U.S. Politics application himself.

‘I don’t want people to know my political views,’ he said. ‘I can see why people would display their views, but I’m a little more private about that sort of thing. The general public does not need to know how I feel.’

Published on December 5, 2007 at 12:00 pm