Is social media really making a difference in elections these days

I read this blog post about the "social media divide" in the MA Senate race recently and have been thinking about it. I wonder how much of this social media stuff really makes a difference in an election. My question is did the social media stuff create the movement (or some of it) to Brown or did it merely reflect what what happening in the real world? Correlation is not automatically causation. I’m not sure how we know for sure.

What I do believe is that the online activity probably helped energize the believers and get them to do more and be more active. That’s a result but an indirect one. I don’t think the social media stuff won over many people but it did empower those who were already won over. Even if that is all there was that is still a powerful thing though. I think candidates ignore social media at their peril these days.

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