Social media has changed the landscape of American politics. Candidates are using more sophisticated social media strategies and voters are communicating more actively among themselves. By one measure, between April and August this year almost 600,000 videos mentioning Obama or Romney had been posted on YouTube, quadruple the number posted during the same period in the 2008 election. But does more information—and a Twitter-speed news cycle—contribute to more considered opinions or simply more noise? How does the model of crowd-sourced political dialogue shape campaign agendas and communication strategies? Do new technologies help us talk across party lines, or do they contribute to more polarization?

Panelist/Discussants: David All, Founder, David All Group; Daniel Kreiss, Assistant Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of North Carolina; Theo Yedinsky, President of Social Stream, Vice President of Sales for North Social, Social Stream, North Social

Sponsors: CITRIS (Ctr for Info Technology Research in the Interest of Society), Robert T. Matsui Center for Politics and Public Service, Data and Democracy Initiative at CITRIS, Center for New Media , School of Information, the Center on Civility & Democractic Engagement at the Goldman School of Public Policy